SWlGGllFOR 
EXISTENCE 

B.H.Streeter 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


God  and  the 
Struggle  for  Existence 


BY 

THE  ARCHBISHOP  OF  DUBLIN 
LILY  DOUGALL 

AND 

CANON  B.  H.  STREETER 

(EDITOR) 


ASSOCIATION    PRESS 

NEW    YORK  :    347    MADISON    AVENUE 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 

THE  INTERNATIONAL  COMMITTEE  OF 

YOUNG  MEN'S  CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS 


FOREWORD 

"GoD  is  dead,"  says  Nietzsche's  Zara- 
thustra;  and  there  are  many  who,  in  face 
of  the  evil  of  the  world,  are  afraid  he  may 
be  right,  yet  still  "faintly  trust  the  larger 
hope."  This  book  is  written  to  suggest  to 
such  that  there  are  solid  grounds  in  reason 
for  the  contrary  conviction — God  is  alive, 
and  from  Him  we  may  get  power  ourselves 
to  really  live. 

CUTTS  END, 
CUMNOR,  Augutt,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTORY         ....  7 

By  B.  HILLMAN  STREETER,  M.A.,  Hon.  D.D.  Edin. 
Fellow  of  Queeu's  College,  Oxford,  Canon  Residentiary 

of  Hereford 
Editor  of  "Foundations";  "Concerning  Prayer"; 

"Immortality";  "The  Spirit" 
Author  of  "Restatement  and  Reunion" 


II.  LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE         .        .          15 

By  the  Most  Rev.  CHARLES  F.  D'ARCY,  D.D. 

Archbishop  of  Dublin 

Author  of  "A  Short  Study  of  Ethics";  "Idealism  and 

Theology";  "God  and  Freedom  in  Human 

Experience,"  etc. 


III.  THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     .          65 

By  LILY  DOUGALL 

Author  of  "Pro  Christo  et  Ecclesia";  "The  Practice 
of  Christianity,"  etc.   Joint  Author  of  "Concern- 
ing Prayer";  "Immortality";  "The  Spirit" 


IV.  POWER — HUMAN  AND  DIVINE          .        108 

By  LILY  DOUGALL 

V.  THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN     ...        154 

By  B.  HILLMAN  STREETER 


INTRODUCTORY 

BY  B.  HILLMAN  STREETER,  M.A., 
Hon.  D.D.  Edin. 

Fellow  of  Queen's  College,  Oxford;  Canon  Residen- 
tiary of  Hereford 

"!F  the  gods,"  said  Socrates,  "do  not  The 
prefer  the  good  man  to  the  evil,  then  it  j* 
is  better  to  die  than  to  live."  Unless  we 
are  convinced  that  in  the  last  resort  the 
power  behind  the  Universe  is  on  the 
side  of  righteousness,  the  mainspring  of 
endeavour  is  broken,  the  lamp  of  hope  is 
almost  quenched.  But  during  the  last 
hundred  years  or  so  there  have  been  not 
a  few  to  whom  it  has  appeared  that  the 
discoveries  of  modern  science  have  made 
the  existence  of  God  "an  unnecessary 
hypothesis."  There  are  many  more  to 
whom  the  experience  of  the  war  has  made 
it  an  incredible  one. 

The    problem    of    evil,    the    question 
whether  life  has  any  meaning,  the  doubt 


8  INTRODUCTORY 

of  the  existence  of  God,  are  felt  with  an 
unprecedented  acuteness  by  the  present 
generation — a  generation  of  which  it  may 
be  well  said  that  "the  iron  has  entered  into 
its  soul."  And  those  who  have  drunk  the 
cup  of  bitterness  to  the  dregs  are  apt  to 
feel  a  peculiar  irritation  at  the  easy  opti- 
mism of  any  theology  or  philosophy  which 
lightly  tries  "to  justify  the  ways  of  God 
to  man." 

Providence  To  the  last  generation  Providence  and 
Progress.  Progress  were  both  magic  words.  To  the 
religious,  the  Universe  seemed  luminous 
of  divine  purpose ;  to  the  intellectuals,  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution  through  natural 
selection  implied  the  automatic  necessity 
of  continuous  advance.  Religion  and 
Science  might  be  difficult  to  harmonise, 
and  the  ethics  of  Christ  and  those  of  the 
Struggle  for  Existence  might  not  seem 
quite  compatible — still,  whichever  way  one 
chose  to  take  it,  in  the  last  resort  this 
was  a  most  excellent  world.  In  an  age  of 
unparalleled  material  comfort,  the  com- 
fortably-minded of  either  school  could 
draw  comfortable  conclusions.  The  reli- 
gious could  say,  "God's  in  his  Heaven, 
all's  right  with  the  world" — and  if  some 
things  did  appear  not  altogether  right, 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

still  they  were  God's  will,  and  He  must 
know  best.  The  non-religious  were  even 
better  off.  The  doctrine  of  progress 
through  the  survival  of  the  fittest  gave  a 
biological  justification  for  doing  one's  own 
sweet  will.  The  religious  might  feel  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  the  claims  of  God 
and  Mammon,  but  these  others  could  claim 
the  authority  of  science  for  the  view  that 
individual  selfishness  is  the  high-road  to 
corporate  salvation.  In  Economics  it  was 
laid  down  as  a  law  of  Nature  that  un- 
limited competition  between  individuals, 
each  seeking  solely  his  own  profit,  inevi- 
tably redounded  to  the  benefit  of  all.  In 
international  politics  the  conclusion  could 
be  drawn  that  war  was  a  "biological  neces- 
sity" and  that  the  nation  which  could  crush 
all  others  was  the  greatest  benefactor  of 
humanity,  since  the  hope  of  civilisation 
lay  in  the  domination  of  the  world  by  the 
strongest  power. 

To-day  the  dogma  that  unlimited  com-  The  Change 
petition  inevitably  leads  to  the  greatest  m0utl 
happiness    of   the   greatest   number   has 
fewer  adherents:  the  doctrine  that  war 
is    a    necessity    for    progress    has    fewer 
still.  .  .  . 

Facts  have  refuted  them. 


10  INTRODUCTORY 

But  if  facts  have  refuted  the  doctrine 
that  Progress  is  a  mechanical  necessity 
and  internecine  struggle  the  path  towards 
it,  have  they  not  equally  refuted  the  belief 
in  a  Providence  that  orders  all  things  for 
the  best?  On  all  sides  we  hear  the  cry, 
What  kind  of  a  God  is  it  who,  having  the 
power  to  overrule  the  destinies  of  man, 
could  look  on  unmoved  at  the  events  of 
the  last  five  years?  Surely  if  ever  in  his- 
tory there  was  a  time  clamant  for  some 
special  intervention,  it  has  been  that  which 
we  have  lived  through. 

The  Hope  of       Modern   civilisation,  nominally   Chris- 

the  Future.    ,.        ,  ,.       ,.      j  •,      .,        ,,.         /. 

tian,  has  in  practice  lived  by  the  ethics  of 

the  struggle  for  existence ;  and  by  the  logic 
of  that  same  ethic  it  seems  like  to  perish — 
through  war  or  the  class-war.  This  is  the 
conclusion  which  thinking  men  and  women 
everywhere  are  drawing.  The  only  hope 
for  the  future  would  seem  to  be  a  new 
social  and  international  morality — a  mo- 
rality based  not  on  competition  but  on  co- 
operation. But  if  the  goodness,  the  power, 
or  the  existence  of  God  be  in  doubt, 
neither  the  intellectual  justification  nor 
the  emotional  dynamic  of  such  an  ethic 
are  particularly  obvious.  And,  if  the  last 
century  read  the  lesson  of  Biology  aright, 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

is  not  that  ethic  necessarily  a  frail  and 
artificial  thing,  since  it  is  built  on  prin- 
ciples which  the  fundamental  nature  of 
reality  denies? 

With  these  and  like  problems  in  their  Purpose  of 
minds  the  authors  of  this  volume  have  ^m^. 
endeavoured  to  re-examine  the  facts. 
Cross-questioning  the  Universe  in  the 
light  of  modern  science  and  human  his- 
tory, they  ask  what  conclusions  a  clear- 
eyed  and  impartial  investigation  will  war- 
rant— both  as  regard  the  nature  and 
character  of  the  Power  behind  phenomena, 
and  the  fate,  the  value,  and  the  hope  of  the 
individual  in  the  scheme  of  things. 

In  the  following  Chapter  some  prelim-  Analysis  of 
inary  questions  are  raised:  Do  the  facts  Contents- 
justify  the  inference  that  there  is  a  God 
at  all,  that  there  is  any  kind  of  intelligent 
direction  behind  the  world  process?  If  so, 
is  this  Intelligence  beneficent — either  in 
the  sense  of  broadly  "making  for  right- 
eousness" or  of  caring  for  the  fate  of  the 
individual  man?  Or  do  the  facts  suggest 
rather  a  limited  God,  beneficent,  indeed, 
but  "cabined,  cribbed,  confined,  bound  in" 
by  some  fate  or  force  or  nature  of  things 
of  which  He,  like  us,  is  to  some  extent  the 
victim?  Or,  again,  is  there  reasonable 


12  INTRODUCTORY 

ground  for  the  belief  that  in  Him  Love 
and  Supreme  Power  can  coexist?  In 
Chapter  III.  the  primd  facie  view  is 
accepted,  that  Nature's  apparent  aim  is 
the  producing  of  beings  perfectly  corre- 
sponding with  their  whole  environment, 
but  that  man,  though  so  far  Nature's  mas- 
terpiece, at  present  very  imperfectly  so 
corresponds.  It  is  then  asked,  what  does 
the  study  of  the  evolutionary  process  as  a 
whole  show  to  be  needed  to  perfect  that 
correspondence;  and,  if  that  process  has 
a  meaning  at  all,  what  inference,  if  any, 
must  we  draw  as  to  the  ethical  quality  and 
character  of  the  Power  of  which  ultimately 
it  is  the  expression.  Chapter  IV.  is  an 
enquiry  into  the  nature  of  Power.  It 
suggests  that  in  the  past  power  of  a  low 
degree  of  effectiveness  has  often  been  mis- 
taken for  supreme  power,  and  it  questions 
how  far  this  error  may  have  vitiated 
traditional  theology  and  ethics.  The  final 
Chapter  endeavours  to  face  the  question 
of  the  suffering  and  failure  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Can  we  say  to  the  man  or  woman 
weighed  down  by  sorrow,  disappointment 
or  remorse  that  there  is  a  "way  out"?  Is 
the  ultimate  nature  of  things  such  as  to 
justify  anything  like  that  belief  in  "Provi- 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

dence"   and  "Salvation"   which  was  the 
very  centre  of  the  old  religion? 

The  thought  and  labours  of  not  a  few  of  Method  and 
the  keenest  intellects  of  our  age  have  been  fc 
concentrated  on  the  problems  we  attack — 
and  that  thought  and  labour  has  not  been 
spent  in  vain.  Some  of  the  questions  are 
as  old  as  philosophy  itself,  others  are  of 
comparatively  modern  origin ;  but  even  on 
the  oldest,  new  light  has  been  thrown  in 
recent  years.  The  authors  of  this  volume 
have  tried  to  unify  and  bring  into  a  small 
compass  various  strands  in  a  widespread 
movement  in  the  thought  of  the  day ;  and 
in  working  at  this  task  they  believe  that 
on  some  points  they  have  found  something 
new  to  offer  and  have  some  things  to  say 
which  either  have  not  been  said  before, 
or  have  been  said,  but  not  with  the 
same  balance  of  emphasis  or  in  the  same 
connection.  But  if  this  is  so,  it  is  because 
they  have  made  it  throughout  their  first 
endeavour  to  interrogate  facts,  not  to  look 
for  answers  which  would  square  with  tra- 
ditional theology.  Some  of  the  answers 
suggested  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
those  given  by  traditional  Christianity, 
only  stated  in  modern  language  and  re- 
lated to  modern  thought.  Others,  it  should 


14  INTRODUCTORY 

frankly  be  admitted,  are  different.  But 
it  is  remarkable  that  in  every  case  where 
the  facts  have  seemed  to  point  to  a  con- 
clusion which  differs  from  that  given  by 
the  old  Theology,  that  conclusion  appears 
to  be  in  effect  a  return  to  the  religion  and 
philosophy  of  Christ. 

Reculer  pour  mieuae  sauter.  Chris- 
tianity moves  forward  whenever  it  goes 
back  to  Christ. 


II 

LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

BY  THE   MOST  REV.   CHARLES   F.   D'ARCY,   D.D. 
Archbishop  of  Dublin 

THE  doubts  characteristic  of  the  present  The 
time  set  these  two  Divine  attributes,  stated?1 
Love  and  Omnipotence,  in  the  sharpest 
antagonism.  If  God  be  good,  it  is  said 
every  day,  He  cannot  be  omnipotent,  the 
world  being  what  it  is.  If  He  be  om- 
nipotent, He  cannot  be  good,  for  the 
same  reason.  He  would  surely  exert  His 
almighty  power  and  put  things  right.  It 
is  an  old  puzzle ;  the  difference  in  its  posi- 
tion is  that  more  people  are  thinking  about 
it  now.  People  who  before  the  war  were 
never  troubled  with  the  malady  of  thought 
have  caught  the  fever  of  enquiry,  and 
stand  aghast  at  the  discovery  of  this 
ancient  problem. 

Why  do  we  believe  in  God?     Apart  Two  Ways 
from  traditional  belief,  and  putting  aside  o 
the   more   academic   discussions    of   the 

15 


16       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

schools,  there  are  two  contrasting  ways  in 
which  men  have  been  able  to  attain  to 
faith  in  a  Supreme  Being  worthy  of  being 
called  by  the  great  name,  God.  The  first 
looks  out  upon  the  vast  world  of  creation, 
and  finds  there  convincing  proof  of  the 
work  of  mind.  The  second  looks  into  the 
inner  experience  of  the  soul,  and  recog- 
nises God  by  spiritual  apprehension.  In 
modern  times,  opinion  has  swung  very 
remarkably  from  the  former  to  the  latter. 
In  the  eighteenth  century,  in  spite  of 
shrewd  criticism,  the  conviction  prevailed 
that  the  argument  from  creation  to  the 
Creator  was  inevitable.  "The  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God;  the  firmament 
showeth  His  handywork,"  sang  the 
Psalmist;  and  never  were  the  words  so 
appreciated  as  when  the  discoveries  of 
astronomy  were  the  most  notable  achieve- 
ments of  science.  The  universe  was  re- 
vealed as  a  huge  mechanism,  a  vast  clock- 
work, moving  with  perfect  regularity. 
The  inference  from  the  watch  to  the 
watchmaker  was  so  striking  and  simple 
that  the  apologist  enjoyed  a  popular 
triumph.  Its  fruits  lasted  far  into  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  Darwinian  revolution  changed  all 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        17 

that.  And  with  the  growth  of  philosophi- 
cal and  psychological  study  came  gradu- 
ally to  light  a  new  world — the  world  of 
inner  experience.  During  the  last  half- 
century,  and  especially  the  last  genera- 
tion, men  have  been  learning  to  find  God 
within,  rather  than  without. 

The  coming  of  this  change  can  be  traced  A  New 
in  Tennyson  and  Browning.  We  find  it  Greyed!"5 
fully  developed  in  the  profound  study  of 
the  mystics  which  has  marked  the  last 
twenty  years.  Now  we  have  reached  a 
position  in  which  this  inner  experience, 
regarded  as  a  revelation  of  God,  has  be- 
come the  inspiration  of  a  fresh  and  popu- 
lar creed.  It  gives  us,  we  are  told,  a  new 
and  vivid  faith  in  God  as  the  representa- 
tive of  our  race,  the  captain  of  our  souls, 
leading  us  in  the  conflict  with  evil,  sharing 
our  pains,  sympathising  with  our  striv- 
ings, using  our  powers  of  mind  and  body 
in  the  struggle  against  material  forces, 
and  helping  us  to  overcome  the  difficulties 
which  beset  us.1  This  God  is  a  finite 
being.  He  is  indeed  born  of  man's  spirit- 
ual experience.  He  is  a  synthesis  of  the 
best  that  is  in  us  all.  From  man  He 
sprang,  and  with  man  He  will  perish.  For 

1  H.  G.  Wells,  God  the  Invisible  King. 


18       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

Him,  as  for  us,  the  great  encircling  uni- 
verse is  an  alien,  intractable  and  terribly 
mysterious  power.  From  this  mysterious 
power  we  had  our  origin.  There  dawned, 
in  the  course  of  natural  evolution,  by  some 
inexplicable  process,  that  fitful  light 
which  we  call  the  mind  or  soul  of  man: 
strong  enough  to  adapt  some  portion  of 
its  material  environment  to  its  needs,  it 
was  yet  not  able  to  gain  any  true  knowl- 
edge of  its  position  or  secure  footing  for 
its  existence.  But  from  our  united 
thoughts  and  efforts  arose  a  higher  soul, 
uniting  and  representing  us  all,  sharing 
our  pains  and  helping  us ;  but  confronted, 
as  we  are,  by  the  same  insoluble  problems. 
This  strange  but  very  interesting  doc- 
trine shows  what  must  happen  if  we  give 
up  the  revelation  of  God  in  Nature.  And 
it  is  well  worthy  of  note  how  directly  it 
leads  to  polytheistic  ways  of  thought. 
Why  should  this  soul  of  our  souls  be  One 
Deity  for  the  whole  human  race?  Why 
should  not  every  nation,  every  distinct 
community,  have  its  own  deity?  On  this 
theory,  the  "Old  German  God"  may  actu- 
ally exist.  The  genius  of  ancient  Athens 
may  actually  have  lived  as  the  divine 
Athena.  If  the  League  of  Nations  se- 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       19 

cures  peace  on  earth  it  may  also  create 
harmony  on  Olympus.  We  are  back 
among  the  Homeric  gods ;  and  can  breathe 
once  more  the  freshness  of  an  early  world. 
It  is  specially  curious,  however,  to  observe 
what  happens  when  we  let  go  our  belief 
in  Nature  as  a  revelation  of  God.  We 
find  ourselves  on  a  descending  slope,  slid- 
ing down  into  paganism.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  in  our  day.  The  unity  of  Na- 
ture implies  the  unity  of  God.  When 
Nature  was  regarded  as  the  scene  in  which 
a  multitude  of  diverse  and  often  opposing 
spiritual  powers  operated  and  competed 
with  one  another,  polytheistic  modes  of 
thought  were  inevitably  suggested.  But 
modern  science  has  been  teaching  more 
and  more  clearly  the  unity  of  Nature. 
Though  that  unity  is  not  yet  fully  demon- 
strated, every  advance  is  a  step  towards 
its  demonstration.  The  instructed  mind 
of  the  modern  man  cannot  look  out  upon 
the  world  and  believe  that  he  is  witnessing 
a  conflict  of  capricious  finite  deities.  He 
knows  that  the  varied  scene  is  the  outcome 
of  one  vast  evolutionary  process,  and 
therefore,  if  he  holds  it  necessary  to  be- 
lieve at  all  in  a  spiritual  life  in  or  behind 
or  around  the  whole,  he  must  believe  in 


20       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

that  life  as  possessing  a  world-embracing 
unity.  But  if  Nature  has  no  message 
about  God,  if  He  be  but  a  synthesis  of 
psychical  elements,  a  group-soul,  arising 
out  of  human  society,  and  perishing  when 
the  group  is  dissipated,  there  is  no  reason 
why  we  should  believe  in  His  unity.  It  is 
much  more  reasonable  to  believe  in  a 
Pantheon. 

Does  It  is  surely  somewhat  surprising  that 

RevS?God?  we  so  seldom  endeavour,  in  these  days,  to 
gather,  by  a  simple  observation  of  Nature, 
and  in  as  undogmatic  a  manner  as  possi- 
ble, some  ideas  concerning  the  character 
of  the  Supreme  Power,  if  such  there  be. 
Perhaps  we  are  influenced  still  by  the  im- 
pressive argument  of  Herbert  Spencer's 
First  Principles,  in  which,  after  an  elabo- 
rate demonstration  of  the  contradictions 
which  may  be  found  in  the  terms  used  to 
describe  the  being  and  attributes  of  God, 
he  concluded  that  the  "Power  which  the 
Universe  manifests  to  us  is  utterly  in- 
scrutable." This  he  affirms  to  be  the 
"deepest,  widest,  and  most  certain  of  all 
facts."  Admitting  that  behind  the  mani- 
fold phenomena  of  Nature  there  must  be 
some  Supreme  Power,  he  yet  holds  as  a 
positive  creed,  and  as  the  most  indubitable 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        21 

of  all  assertions,  the  doctrine  that  this 
Power  is  unknowable.  Spencer's  Agnos- 
tic creed,  thus  presented  as  the  result  of 
an  irresistible  philosophical  criticism  of 
the  effort  to  ascend  from  Nature  to  God, 
has  had  an  enormous  influence.  It  puts 
in  a  formal  shape  the  conclusion  which  so 
many  minds  have  gathered  hastily  from 
the  difficulties  and  perplexities  which  beset 
them  as  they  try  to  adjust  their  traditional 
creed  to  the  new  ideas  of  science  and  to 
the  painful  problems  of  life.  The  ques- 
tion with  which  we  are  now  dealing  is  an 
instance.  The  omnipotence  of  God  is  not 
only  difficult  to  reconcile  with  His  good- 
ness, in  view  of  the  facts  of  human  experi- 
ence, it  is  itself  a  conception  which  involves 
contradiction.  The  fact  must  be  admitted. 
Every  effort  to  think  out  the  idea  of 
omnipotence  will  be  found  to  end  in  con- 
tradiction. We  need  not  pursue  the  in- 
vestigation: it  would  lead  into  mazes  of 
dialectical  discussion,  which  would  but  ob- 
scure the  issue  and  afford  no  satisfaction. 
But  Herbert  Spencer  fails  to  note  that  the 
very  statement  in  which  he  presents  his 
creed  is  itself  contradictory.  The  "Power 
which  the  Universe  manifests  to  us  is  ut- 
terly inscrutable."  We  may  well  ask,  If 


22       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 


Difficulty 
not  Pe- 
culiar to 
Theology. 


the  Power  is  manifested,  how  is  it  inscrut- 
able? It  is  surely  clear  that  so  far  as  the 
Power  is  manifested,  it  is  not  inscrutable. 

The  truth  is  that  an  acute  criticism  can 
always  find  contradictions  in  the  terms 
which  express  the  underlying  principles 
of  all  branches  of  knowledge.  This  fact 
has  been  amply  proved  in  recent  years. 
There  is  no  department  of  science, 
whether  physical  or  moral,  which  cannot 
be  thus  undermined.  Theology  is  not  in 
any  worse  case,  in  this  respect,  than  other 
branches  of  enquiry.  But  all  sciences  have 
to  be  continually  adjusting  their  concep- 
tions to  advancing  experience  and  the 
more  searching  criticism  which  it  brings. 
Nor  does  any  science  let  go  its  old  prin- 
ciples, principles  which  it  has  found  to 
work  well  in  the  past,  until  it  can  success- 
fully adjust  itself  to  the  altered  conditions 
in  which  it  finds  itself. 

We  are  not,  then,  to  cease  to  seek  God 
in  Nature,  because  science  has  given  us 
new  views  of  Nature,  or  because  some  of 
our  old  conceptions  prove  difficult.  The- 
ology, like  science,  must  ever  be  prepared 
to  take  up  its  burden  anew,  undeterred  by 
the  greatness  or  difficulty  of  the  task  which 
lies  before  it. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       2 

Suppose  then,  assuming,  like  Herbert  character 
Spencer,  that  there  is  some  great  power 
which  works  in  the  universe,  and  keeping 
in  mind  the  modern  view  of  creation, 
we  ask  the  question,  Is  it  possible  to 
gather  from  experience  and  observation 
any  clear  ideas  as  to  the  character  of 
that  Power?  As  we  know  a  man  from 
his  deeds,  we  ought  surely  to  be  able  to 
attain  to  some  estimate  of  the  character 
of  the  Supreme  Power  by  considering 
the  universe,  which  is  the  expression  of 
its  activity. 

Approaching  this  question  with  a  reso-  Natural 
lute  determination  to  escape  the  influence  eauty* 
of  customary  opinion,  and  above  all  keep- 
ing clear  of  traditional  dogma,  and  sur- 
veying creation  as  a  whole  and  without 
emphasis  on  those  aspects  of  it  which  are 
specially  attractive  to  our  desires  and 
needs,  it  would  appear  that  the  Supreme 
Power  is  much  more  concerned  with  the 
production  of  beauty,  especially  beauty 
of  form  and  colour,  than  with  goodness. 
Nature  produces  the  beautiful  with  a 
lavishness  which  finds  no  parallel  in  the 
works  of  man ;  and  the  beauty  of  Nature 
is  not,  as  in  human  art,  a  form  added  to  a 
material,  which  is  diverted  from  its  proper 


24       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

use  to  serve  the  artistic  purpose.  The 
beauty  of  Nature  is  intrinsic,  universal, 
penetrating.  It  springs  into  being 
through  the  inevitable  working  of  natural 
forces.  It  is  as  perfect  in  the  little  as  in 
the  great,  in  the  snowflake  and  the  struc- 
ture of  the  minutest  organism  as  in  the 
Alpine  peak  or  the  sunset  sky.  It  is 
found  in  the  most  irregular  heaping  to- 
gether of  fragments,  a  mountain  slope  or 
a  torrent,  as  in  the  perfect  symmetry  of 
the  blue  dome  of  the  sky.  If  it  be  urged 
that  the  beauty  of  Nature  is  not  in  the 
things  themselves  but  in  the  cultivated 
mind  which  has  learned  to  appreciate  it, 
there  is  the  ready  answer  that  here  is  the 
very  point  of  the  argument.  The  fact  that 
high  cultivation  of  the  aesthetic  faculties 
enables  us  to  see  ever  more  and  more 
beauty  in  Nature,  is  the  very  reason  why 
we  feel  bound  to  discern  in  the  Power 
behind  Nature  a  Being  to  whom  the 
beautiful  is  an  end.  So  far  as  this  part  of 
our  spiritual  being  is  concerned,  we  dis- 
cern that  we  are  akin  to  the  Supreme 
Power.  We  conclude  that  the  beauty  of 
Nature  points  to  a  certain  character  in  the 
Supreme.  He,  shall  we  say,  produces 
beauty  because  He  delights  in  it,  and 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        25 

seemingly  prizes   it  far  more  than  He 
prizes  goodness.1 

This  inference  appears  much  more  in- 
evitable when  we  consider  that  most  of 
this  beauty  is,  from  the  material  point  of 
view,  a  waste  product.  It  is  useless.  It 
does  not  help  individuals  to  live  or  races 
to  survive.  Yet  this  unnecessary  beauty 
is  poured  out  with  infinite  prodigality  on 
a  careless,  unseeing  creation.  In  Nature 
it  is  hard  to  find  anything  which  is  truly 
ugly.  For  the  ugly,  one  has  to  turn  to  the 
works  of  man. 

On  the  other  hand,  goodness,  in  the  Goodness 
moral  sense  of  the  term,  makes  its  appear-  m  ature* 
ance  only  after  immense  ages.  It  appears 
fitfully,  is  maintained  with  difficulty,  and 
is  nearly  always  very  imperfect.  Yet 
goodness  is  useful  as  beauty  is  not.  It  is 
the  cement  of  societies,  enabling  men  to 
unite,  and  so  become  far  more  effective  in 
their  struggle  with  material  forces.  If 
human  society  were  uniformly  good  in  a 
very  high  degree,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
eugenic  principles  would  prevail,  disease 
would  be  very  largely  eliminated,  indus- 

1  On  the  argument  from  the  beauty  of  Nature  and  for 
a  convincing  criticism  of  Kant's  objection,  see  J.  H. 
Kennedy,  Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought. 


26       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

trial  conditions  would  be  wholly  trans- 
formed, war  would  be  impossible — the 
world  would  be  a  very  happy  place,  as  we 
commonly  count  happiness.  Morality  is 
therefore  a  very  useful  thing,  and  the  won- 
der is  that  an  evolutionary  process,  which 
is  supposed  to  depend  upon  the  produc- 
tion of  the  useful,  has  not  brought  forth 
more  goodness. 

Now,  regarding  this  problem  from  the 
point  of  view  of  those  who  believe  that  the 
universe  is  the  life-work  of  a  great  Su- 
preme Spirit,  we  can  see  a  reason  for  this 
difference.  God  makes  the  world  beauti- 
ful because  He  loves  the  beautiful,  and 
can  produce  it  without  the  intervention  of 
finite  wills.  He  has  not  made  the  world 
good,  because  goodness  can  only  come 
about  through  the  co-operation  of  finite 
wills  with  one  another  and  with  Him. 
First,  the  finite  wills  have  to  be  produced, 
and  there  can  be  no  goodness  in  creation 
until  they  arise.  Secondly,  when  they  are 
produced,  they  have  to  come  into  harmony 
with  one  another  and  with  Him.  And  this 
harmony  is  impossible  without  a  willing 
denial  of  selfish  inclinations  on  the  part  of 
the  individual.  When  this  fact  is  grasped, 
the  enormous  difficulty  of  the  production 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        27 

of  a  good  world  is  evident.  It  takes  man 
— every  man — as  well  as  God,  to  pro- 
duce it. 

Regarding  the  problem  from  the  side  of  Problem 
experience,  we  learn  that  only  by  educa-  ° 
tion  and  discipline  can  men  be  brought  to 
overcome  their  selfish  inclinations  for  the 
good  of  the  whole.     And  this  education 
and  discipline  involve  pain.    Here,  surely, 
is  the  place  of  pain  in  the  moral  history  of 
mankind. 

But  this  does  not  take  in  the  whole 
problem  of  pain.  The  animal  creation, 
in  all  its  myriad  races,  is  subject  to  pain. 
Yet  even  here  we  can  see  that  pain  has 
its  place,  and  a  very  important  place,  in 
evolution.  The  pain  of  hunger  drives  the 
living  creature  to  seek  its  food.  The  pain 
of  torn  flesh  and  the  fear  of  such  pain 
impel  the  hunted  creature  to  seek  safety. 
Through  the  ministry  of  pain  have  come 
about  some  of  the  most  perfect  and  most 
beautiful  of  living  forms.  The  pursuing 
wolf -pack  gave  to  the  horse  his  swiftness 
and  his  strength.  The  leopard's  claw  gave 
to  the  antelope  its  surpassing  grace  and 
agility. 

If  this  use  of  pain  to  secure  progress, 
and  its  service  in  providing  moral  disci- 


28       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

pline  for  man,  were  all,  the  problem  of 
pain  would  not  be  the  terribly  oppressive 
thing  that  it  is.  What  wrings  our  hearts 
and  stirs  us  to  doubt  the  Divine  goodness 
is  the  seeming  superfluity  of  pain — the 
torture  that,  apparently,  does  no  good,  the 
sorrow  that  brings  no  blessing  we  can  dis- 
cern. It  is  our  inability  to  see  any  efficacy 
for  good  in  so  much  of  the  appalling  suf- 
fering occasioned  by  the  late  war  that  has 
aroused  questioning  in  so  many  minds. 
What  good  flows  to  themselves  or  to  the 
world  from  the  martyrdom  of  the  Arme- 
nians, or  the  deportation  of  the  women 
and  children  of  Belgium  and  Northern 
France  ? 

Yet,  when  we  view  human  history  in  a 
large  way,  we  must  see  that  the  way  of 
suffering  is  the  way  of  progress.  With 
pain  man  is  brought  into  the  world:  by 
painful  effort  on  the  part  of  others  his 
early  life  is  nourished  and  protected:  only 
with  painful  toil  and  self-denial  can  he  do 
his  duty  as  a  man:  by  painful  struggle, 
and  generally  severe  suffering  on  the  part 
of  many,  is  every  onward  step  in  human 
development  achieved.  Science,  art,  social 
improvement,  spiritual  attainment — every 
great  and  noble  thing  in  human  life — come 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        29 

about  as  the  results  of  processes  which 
involve  much  suffering.  Yes,  and  arise 
out  of  conditions  which  are  painful.  For 
it  is  the  pain  of  need,  material  or  spiritual, 
which  drives  man  ever  onward  on  the  path 
of  attainment. 

This  is  the  truth  which  lends  plausibility 
to  the  pessimism  of  the  East.  But  that 
pessimism  goes  too  far  in  its  argument, 
that  since  all  effort  springs  out  of  the  pain 
of  desire,  and  since  the  satisfaction  of 
desire  is  momentary,  all  life  is  essentially 
painful.  It  omits  to  consider  that  the 
exercise  of  the  completed  faculty — that  is, 
healthy  living  in  its  normal  functioning — 
is  essentially  pleasurable ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, however  painful  the  process  may  be, 
the  result  is  happiness.  That  is,  pain 
exists  in  order  to  produce  happiness.  It 
is  happiness  in  the  making.  That  is  the 
true  lesson  of  the  psychology  of  the  will. 

When  we  have  reached  this  point  we  Painin 
can  understand  the  teaching  of  the  New  ^stament 
Testament.    It  is  a  very  remarkable  fact 
that,  while  psalmist,  poet,  and  prophet 
in   the    Old   Testament   are    continually 
troubled  by  the  problem  of  suffering,  ever 
returning  to  it,  and  never  completely  satis- 
fied, the  New  Testament  shows,  for  the 


30       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

most  part,  a  complete  unconsciousness 
that  such  a  problem  exists.  St  Paul,  in 
one  brief  passage  (Rom.  viii.  18-26), 
recognises  it.  "The  whole  creation,"  he 
writes,  "groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain 
together  until  now."  But  he  had  already, 
in  a  few  brief  sentences,  solved  the  prob- 
lem on  the  lines  of  his  thought.  "The  suf- 
ferings of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy 
to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall 
be  revealed. . . .  For  the  earnest  expectation 
of  the  creation  waiteth  for  the  revealing 
of  the  sons  of  God.  For  the  creation  was 
subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its  own  will, 
but  by  reason  of  Him  who  subjected  it,  in 
hope  that  the  creation  itself  also  shall  be 
delivered  from  the  bondage  of  corruption 
into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children 
of  God."  That  is,  the  suffering  of  crea- 
tion is  a  temporary  thing,  part  of  the 
preparation  for  a  coming  perfection  when 
sorrow  shall  be  lost  in  joy. 

The  New  Testament  as  a  whole,  and  the 
teaching  and  example  of  our  Lord,  go 
even  beyond  this.  For  them  suffering  is 
not  a  difficulty  to  be  explained:  it  is  a 
source  of  light,  a  manifestation  of  Divine 
love.  The  reason  of  this  change  of  atti- 
tude is  simple  and  obvious :  it  is  the  fact  of 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       £l 

the  Cross  of  Christ.  The  suffering  Son 
of  God  reveals  the  greatness  of  the  love 
of  God.  God's  sharing  of  man's  pain 
brought  home  the  supreme  truth  with  sav- 
ing power  to  the  soul. 

Out  of  this  arose  the  great  Christian 
idea  of  man  as  a  sharer  in  the  Divine  suf- 
fering. St  Paul  delights  in  the  thought 
that  he  can  know,  not  only  the  power  of 
Christ's  resurrection,  but  also  "the  fellow- 
ship of  His  sufferings,  becoming  con- 
formed unto  His  death."  And,  for  some 
centuries,  suffering  was  regarded  as  the 
surest  mark  of  holiness,  so  that  a  confessor 
or  a  martyr  attracted  the  deepest  rever- 
ence. 

Suppose,  for  the  moment,  that  we  en-  Pain  and 
large  this  conception  and  think  of  the 
agony  of  the  world  as  we  have  witnessed 
it,  as  a  great  work  of  redemption,  or  at 
least  uplifting,  bringing  about  a  higher 
life  for  future  generations  of  men  and  re- 
sults greater  than  we  can  now  realise  in 
the  heavenly  sphere:  surely  we  must  be- 
lieve that  the  end  is  worth  the  sacrifice. 
The  main  difficulty  is  that,  in  so  many 
cases,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  individual 
suffers  horribly  without  any  manifest 
good  result  to  himself  or  to  others ;  and  is 


32       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

very  often  a  helpless  woman  or  innocent 
child,  a  mere  victim  of  lust  or  cruelty.  All 
that  can  be  said  in  answer  to  this  is,  it 
would  seem,  that  only  a  complete  knowl- 
edge of  the  universe  to  all  eternity  could 
enable  us  to  measure  the  result  of  every 
such  sacrifice.  More  fully,  surely,  than 
the  "flower  in  the  crannied  wall"  is  every 
conscious  individual  related  to  the  whole 
universal  scheme  of  things.  Our  belief  in 
the  future  life,  also,  enlarges  without 
measure  the  field  of  possibilities  and  the 
difficulty  of  pronouncing  judgment  on  the 
worth  of  any  particular  instance  of  suffer- 
ing. 

Returning  to  our  main  line  of  argu- 
ment, we  find  then  that  there  is  ample  evi- 
dence to  bear  out  the  contention  that,  the 
nature  of  man  being  what  it  is — con- 
sciousness, desire,  and  will  being  what  they 
are — pain  is  the  necessary  discipline  by 
means  of  which  goodness  must  be  brought 
about.  The  God  who  could  make  a  uni- 
verse beautiful  throughout  by  the  normal 
working  of  natural  forces,  could  not  pro- 
duce a  good  universe  but  by  the  instru- 
mentality of  suffering.  And  this  does  not 
mean  that  He  prizes  goodness  less  than 
He  prizes  beauty.  Rather,  it  means  that 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       33 

He  prizes  it  more.  He  is  willing  to  make 
infinitely  greater  sacrifices  in  order  to  ob- 
tain it.  The  fact  of  pain,  then,  enhances 
our  conception  of  the  value  which  God  sets 
upon  goodness. 

It  enhances  all  values.  For,  when  thus 
interpreted,  it  means  that  God  so  delights 
in  perfecting  His  creation,  with  all  its 
beauty,  by  making  it  as  complete  morally 
as  it  is  aesthetically,  that  He  thinks  any 
sacrifice,  no  matter  how  tremendous, 
whether  on  His  own  part  or  on  the  part 
of  His  conscious,  wilful  children,  to  be 
well  worth  while. 

If  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  God  Fellowship 
shares  in  every  human  grief,  that  no  lonely 
sufferer  endures  his  agony  apart  from  the 
sympathy  and  fellowship  of  God,  that 
every  sacrifice  made  is  a  sacrifice  on  God's 
part  as  well  as  on  man's,  and  that,  in  suf- 
fering, God  is  calling  on  us  to  join  Him 
in  his  age-long  struggle  against  evil,  we 
have  a  view  of  the  world  and  of  human 
life  which  gives  to  all  genuine  moral  effort, 
whether  pleasurable  or  painful,  an  in- 
trinsic worth  which  cannot  be  estimated. 
It  will  appear,  as  we  proceed,  that  there 
is  reason  to  believe  in  this  co-operation  of 
God  with  us  in  the  struggle  of  life,  but 


34       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

there  is  a  simple  consideration  which  pro- 
vides a  basis  for  confidence,  and  which  we 
must  first  make  clear. 

Trust-  All    our    experiences    of    the    world, 

of°the  whether    gained    through    our    ordinary 

Universe.       practical  activities,  or  through  advancing 

scientific  research,  conspire  to  prove  that 

the  Supreme  Power  which  works  in  the 

universe  is  trustworthy. 

We  carry  on  all  our  work  and  make  all 
our  plans  for  the  future  on  the  supposition 
that  there  is  a  fundamental  order  in  things. 
We  know  that  we  can  depend  on  that 
order,  and  that  we  shall  not  be  put  to  con- 
fusion. We  are  quite  certain  that  the 
whole  of  things  is  a  cosmos  and  not  a 
chaos:  we  deal  writh  the  world  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  what  is  true  to-day  will 
be  true  to-morrow,  that  things  do  not 
appear  and  disappear,  combine  or  dis- 
integrate, in  an  utterly  aimless,  unmean- 
ing fashion;  and  we  find  that,  though  we 
are  often  puzzled,  and  often  reach  the 
limits  of  our  knowledge  and  power,  on  the 
whole  we  are  not  disappointed. 

Revealed  in       It  is  also  to  be  observed  that  there  has 

Religion?*     been  a  steadily  progressive   advance   in 

the  banishing  of  the  expectation  of  the 

capricious  from  our  thoughts  about  the 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       35 

world  around  us.  Among  primitive  peo- 
ples the  world  is  imagined  as  full  of  spirit- 
ual powers,  whose  influence  may  be  de- 
tected in  every  unaccountable  event,  and 
whose  actions  fill  human  life  with  uncer- 
tainty. As  civilisation  increases,  this  ani- 
mistic belief  gives  place  to  Polytheism — a 
change  which  greatly  adds  to  the  sense  of 
security  and  of  elevation,  but  which  still 
finds  a  large  space  for  the  capricious  and 
discordant.  When  Monotheism  super- 
venes, life  attains  a  unification,  and  there- 
fore a  trustworthiness,  before  impossible. 

The  truth  which  we  thus  gather  from  Revealed  in 
our  ordinary  experience  and  from  the  his-  Science- 
tory  of  religions  has  found  a  magnificent 
justification  in  the  great  career  of  modern 
science.  The  work  of  science  has  been, 
especially,  a  progressive  reduction  to  order 
of  the  seeming  confusion  of  the  physical 
world.  The  discovery  of  the  laws  of  Na- 
ture, as  they  have  been  called,  is  really  the 
discovery  of  a  fundamental  trustworthi- 
ness in  the  Universe.  It  is  shown  that 
there  is  an  underlying  order  in  the  succes- 
sion of  natural  events,  when  that  succes- 
sion is  understood,  on  which  we  can  abso- 
lutely depend.  The  essential  point  is,  that 
man  can  understand — that  is,  that  he  can 


36       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 


Human 
Control  of 
Natural 
Forces. 


find  in  his  own  mind  a  measure  which  he 
can  adjust  to  the  ways  in  which  the  things 
in  the  natural  world  act  and  react  upon 
one  another.  Science  is  indeed  man  find- 
ing himself  at  home  in  the  Universe,  and 
finding  that,  within  certain  limits,  he  is 
safe.  Thus  science  may  be  regarded  as  a 
vast  demonstration  that  the  Supreme 
Power  which  works  in  the  Universe  is  not 
only  trustworthy,  but  is  not  so  alien  in 
character  from  man  as  to  be  utterly  in- 
scrutable. If  man  can  by  research  and 
experiment  make  himself  so  much  at  home 
in  the  Universe,  he  must  surely,  to  some 
degree,  be  able  to  adjust  his  thoughts  to 
the  Power  which  works  in  the  Universe. 
Complete  Agnosticism  is  therefore  not 
justified  by  the  teaching  of  science. 

It  is  because  of  this  trustworthiness  in 
things  that  man  has  been  able,  in  so  mar- 
vellous a  manner,  especially  in  recent 
times,  to  subordinate  the  material  world 
to  his  own  purposes.  When  he  has  dis- 
covered the  ways  in  which  natural  forces 
operate,  he  can  count  upon  those  forces 
to  produce  their  proper  effect,  and  can  use 
them  to  modify  one  another,  quite  certain 
that  they  will  not  fail  him.  All  the  won- 
derful processes  of  engineering  and  of 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       37 

the  various  applications  of  the  physical 
sciences,  depend  on  this  principle.  They 
show  the  power  which  man  gains  when  he 
finds  that  things  are  not  incoherent  and 
capricious,  but  coherent  and  therefore 
trustworthy.  It  is  the  very  fact  of  un- 
varying sequence  in  natural  events  which 
gives  to  human  mind  and  will  their  power 
over  natural  forces.  Man  is  free  and 
mighty  in  the  world,  because  the  Supreme 
Power  which  works  in  the  world  is  trust- 
worthy. This  is  indeed  the  very  charter 
of  human  liberty. 

It  is  also  true  that  our  modern  delight  Commun- 
in  Nature,  and  the  rest  and  peace  which 
come  to  the  soul  through  communion  with 
Nature,  are  closely  related  to  our  sense  of 
an  underlying  trustworthiness  in  the  Uni- 
verse. Why  do  we  turn  from  the  worries 
and  sorrows  of  human  life,  and  from  its 
puzzles  and  problems,  to  the  beauty  and 
greatness  of  Nature,  and  find  there  a 
source  of  consolation  and  strength?  It  is, 
surely,  because  we  have  found  there  a 
revelation  of  some  power  or  principle  on 
which  we  feel  we  can  rely.  It  is  because, 
in  some  way  or  other,  we  discern  in  Na- 
ture an  immanent  life  which  is  not  alien 
from  ourselves,  and  on  whose  strength  we 


38       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

can  lay  hold.  Apart  from  such  a  convic- 
tion, there  is  no  source  of  peace  to  be 
found  in  Nature.  "Red  in  tooth  and 
claw,"  Nature  presents  the  problem  of 
continual  pain  in  the  most  obtrusive  man- 
ner. To  the  primitive  animistic  mind  it 
is  also  filled  with  lurking  terrors,  even 
more  awful  than  the  tiger  or  the  snake. 
Wordsworth  is  right  when  he  traces  the 
joy  in  Nature  to  the  apprehension  of  the 
"presence  which  disturbs  us  with  the  joy 
of  elevated  thought,  a  sense  sublime  of 
something  far  more  deeply  interfused." 
The  reflective  mind  traces  out  the  source 
of  its  joy  and  finds  God. 

Summary.  In  the  light  of  these  thoughts,  let  us  now 
turn  back  on  our  brief  examination  of  the 
evidence  which  Nature  and  experience 
afford  as  to  the  character  of  the  Supreme 
Power  of  the  Universe. 

We  must  think  of  that  Power  as  one 
which  expresses  itself  in  producing  the 
infinite  variety  of  creation,  and  also  in 
giving  to  the  forms  of  creation  an  extra- 
ordinary abundance — a  superabundance 
— of  beauty.  In  addition,  it  seems  quite 
clear  that  the  Power  which  the  Universe 
manifests  to  us  is  essentially  trustworthy 
— there  is  a  fundamental  certainty  on 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        39 

which  both  thought  and  life  can  rest  with 
confidence.  These  indications  of  character 
seem  to  point  to  a  certain  degree  of  kin- 
ship between  the  soul  of  man  and  the  Su- 
preme Power,  for  man  enjoys  the  exercise 
of  creative  power  in  all  the  arts  which  he 
has  learned  to  practise,  and  he  can  endow 
the  products  of  art  with  some  degree  of 
beauty,  and  by  this  experience  attain  to 
such  an  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  that 
at  last  he  awakens  to  the  overwhelming 
beauty  of  the  world  about  him.  Man  has 
also  in  his  experience  gained  the  idea  of 
goodness,  and  though  his  own  attainment 
of  goodness  is  very  imperfect,  he  has  been 
able  to  rise  to  the  belief  that  goodness  is  a 
quality  of  the  Supreme  Power.  But  he 
finds  himself  perplexed  and  dismayed  by 
the  monstrous  evils  which  exist  in  the 
world,  and  the  doubt  intrudes — Can  the 
Power  which  gives  being  to  the  world  be 
indeed  good?  Or,  if  He  be  good,  is  He  in 
the  position  of  an  engineer  who  has  lost 
control  of  some  great  machine  which  he 
has  made?  We  have  seen  that  here  there 
enters  another  consideration.  The  Su- 
preme Power  cannot  make  the  world  good 
without  the  co-operation  of  the  intelligent 
human  beings  whom  He  has  endowed  with 


40       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

moral  spontaneity.  Only  by  a  harmony 
of  all  wills  can  a  good  Universe  be  pro- 
duced. 

state-  May  it  not  be  possible  that  this  element 

Problem.  introduces  a  final  uncertainty  into  things, 
and  leaves  the  end  open  to  doubt?  Per- 
haps, too,  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Su- 
preme ceases  with  the  physical  order.  We 
can  depend  upon  the  laws  of  Nature :  we 
cannot  depend  on  human  will.  Why 
should  we  hold  that  the  limit  which  thus 
applies  to  ourselves  does  not  also  apply  to 
God?  Experience  seems  to  show  that  here 
God  is  just  as  much  limited  as  we  are.  We 
have  seen  the  evil  wills  of  ambitious  men 
plunge  the  world  into  a  whirlpool  of  crime 
and  misery.  Would  not  God  have  pre- 
vented this  if  He  could?  And  if  He  could 
not  prevent  it  in  our  time,  why  should  we 
think  that  He  will  be  able  to  prevent 
similar,  or  even  worse,  evils  in  the  future? 
We  have  also  considered  the  Christian  be- 
lief that,  through  suffering,  God  is  work- 
ing out  a  great  redemption.  But,  even  if 
we  grant  this,  what  security  have  we  that 
the  effort  will  be  successful  finally  and  on 
the  scale  of  the  Universe?  It  is  quite 
possible  that  suffering  may  be  the  means 
through  which  certain  limited  goods,  such 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        41 

as  we  have  considered,  may  be  attained; 
and  yet  it  may  be  vain  to  look  for  any 
final  and  complete  victory  over  evil  in  this 
way.  Our  common  experience  seems  to 
point  to  such  a  conclusion.  We  see  many 
cases  in  which,  after  a  brave  struggle,  by 
which  much  good  is  accomplished,  the  life 
seems  to  sink  down  to  death  in  unhappi- 
ness  or  utter  misery.  Such  a  life  seems  a 
broken  thing.  We  think  there  must  be 
another  half.  But,  even  granting  another 
half,  what  reason  have  we  to  believe  that 
things  will  be  better  in  a  future  life  than 
in  this? 

What  we  need  to  save  us  from  the  de- 
spair to  which  such  questions  lead  is  a 
principle  which  will  carry  the  Divine 
trustworthiness  beyond  our  limited  ex- 
perience, and  give  us  reason  to  believe 
that,  no  matter  what  happens,  the  evil 
must  be  overcome  in  the  end,  the  good 
must  ultimately  triumph. 

We  have  seen  that,  however  we  ap- 
proach  the  problem,  we  are  confronted  by 
the  same  great  difficulty — the  disorder  in- 
troduced into  the  world  by  the  diverse  and 
discordant  wills  of  men.  There  cannot  be 
goodness  at  all  in  the  world  but  by  the 
operation  of  will.  Goodness  is  essentially 


42       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

a  quality  of  will.  Therefore,  in  order  to 
produce  a  good  world,  if  that  indeed  was 
the  purpose  of  the  Supreme  Power,  it  was 
necessary  that  He  should  call  into  exist- 
ence a  multitude  of  beings  endowed  with 
moral  faculty — able,  that  is,  to  choose  be- 
tween good  and  evil.  This  made  possible 
a  good  world,  but  it  also  made  possible  the 
existence  of  evil ;  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
there  is  nothing  impossible  in  the  supposi- 
tion that  it  also  opened  the  way  for  the 
ultimate  triumph  of  evil.  We  can  im- 
agine the  terrible  force  of  will  let  loose  in 
the  world,  growing  in  its  self-assertion  of 
hostile  principles,  setting  man  against 
man,  community  against  community,  na- 
tion against  nation.  We  can  pursue  in 
thought  the  consequences  of  such  a  condi- 
tion of  things  and  see  how  directly  it 
would  lead  to  the  overthrow  of  all  civilisa- 
tion and  the  end  of  all  that  makes  human 
life  worth  living.  We  can  feel  indeed  that 
we  have  been  very  near  to  such  a  catas- 
trophe in  recent  years,  and  that  in  the 
unsettlement  of  all  the  accustomed  ar- 
rangements of  ordered  existence  which 
marks  the  present  time  there  lurk  possi- 
bilities of  social  chaos  that  might  easily 
undo  all  that  has  been  accomplished 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        43 

by  the  painful  struggles  of  thousands 
of  years.  The  condition  of  Russia  to- 
day stands  as  an  awful  example  of  such 
a  chaos. 

The  centre  of  the  problem  with  which  Centre  of 
»  -      i  •  i  ,  TP   Problem. 

we  have  to  deal  is  now  presented  to  us.    It 

evil  is  to  be  overcome  and  the  world  saved 
from  the  unimaginable  horror  we  have 
just  indicated,  there  must  supervene  some 
power  which  can  prevail  over  the  antago- 
nisms of  contending  wills  and  so  produce 
harmony.  There  are  many  principles 
which  can  do  this  in  a  partial  way.  Rea- 
son can  persuade  the  intellect  and  induce 
those  who  are  in  opposition  to  come  to 
some  better  understanding.  The  appeal 
to  interest  will  often  make  men  sink  other 
differences  and  unite  in  practical  co-opera- 
tion. The  bonds  arising  from  that  mutual 
interdependence  in  the  common  social 
order  which  is  created  by  the  fundamental 
conditions  of  our  life  are  very  strong. 
Family  ties,  friendships,  associations  in 
work  and  in  pleasure,  keep  men  from 
pushing  oppositions  to  an  extremity.  All 
these  influences  work  for  good  against  the 
disruptive  power  of  self-asserting  will. 
But  there  is  a  principle  which  is  deeply 
engaged  in  all  these,  and  which  is  yet 


44       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

purer  and  more  powerful  than  them  all 
when  once  it  is  put  forth. 

Power  of  Love  can  overcome  the  opposition  of 

Love*  wills,   and,   in  doing  so,   bring   about  a 

higher  harmony  than  any  which  can  result 
from  agreement  on  the  basis  of  reasonable 
understanding,  common  interest,  or  asso- 
ciation. All  these  persuade,  Love  con- 
quers. It  is  like  Force  in  this.  But  while 
force  conquers  and  destroys,  Love  con- 
quers and  fulfils. 

It  is  very  important  to  observe  that  it  is 
only  in  a  world  in  which  there  are  wills 
possessed  of  the  power  of  choice,  and  in 
which  there  is  therefore  the  possibility  of 
evil,  that  Love  can  find  full  scope.  For 
Love  must  be  freely  given  or  it  is  not 
Love ;  and,  further,  it  is  in  overcoming  the 
oppositions  which  it  encounters,  and  by 
sacrifice  winning  its  way  to  victory,  that 
Love  enters  into  full  possession  of  its 
kingdom.  Love  finds  its  true  sphere  in  a 
world  in  which  are  sin  and  sorrow,  loss  as 
well  as  gain.  The  possibility  of  evil  is  a 
necessary  condition,  as  we  have  seen,  of 
all  real  goodness.  It  is,  we  now  see, 
necessary  especially  for  the  full  exercise 
of  that  great  spiritual  faculty  which  we 
call  Love. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        45 

What  is  Love?  The  question  is  not  easy  what  is 
to  answer.  Many  partial  answers  might  Love? 
be  given.  Love  may  be  described  as  an 
emotion,  but  it  is  something  more.  It  is 
more  even  than  the  will  to  bless.  We  shall 
come  nearer  to  its  true  nature  if  we  define 
it  as  the  giving  of  self.  Love  is  self  find- 
ing itself  in  another.  It  is  self  resting  in 
the  other  as  its  end.  Love  makes  complete 
sacrifice  for  the  other.  Thus  it  annihilates 
the  opposition  between  self  and  self.  It 
attains  a  unity  which  intellect  can  never 
attain,  for,  though  reason  may  demand 
such  a  unity,  intellect  has  never  been  able 
to  think  it  out.  Love,  therefore,  is  a  bond 
of  union  among  souls  in  a  manner  which 
somehow  passes  beyond  the  grasp  of 
thought. 

Christianity  has  ventured  to  affirm  that  God  is 
Love  is  the  essential  nature  of  God,  and  LoTe' 
therefore  the  ultimate  truth  of  the  Uni- 
verse. "God  is  love,  and  he  that  abideth  in 
love  abideth  in  God  and  God  abideth  in 
him."  If  this  be  true,  we  have  reason  to 
believe  that,  no  matter  how  gigantic  the 
evils  of  the  world  may  become,  there  is  a 
power  which  will  finally  overcome  them 
all.  For  here  is  a  principle  which  exactly 
meets  the  great  need  of  the  world.  The 


46       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

world  is  not  as  good  as  it  is  beautiful,  be- 
cause goodness  requires  the  willing  co- 
operation of  human  wills,  as  well  as  the 
will  of  God,  to  produce  it;  and  so  far 
human  wills  have  not  united  wholly  with 
the  will  of  God.  But  if  we  believe  that 
God  is  Love,  and  that  He  has  all  eternity 
at  His  disposal,  we  cannot  despair.  We 
must  believe  that  He  will  finally  prevail 
over  all  oppositions  and  bring  about  a  uni- 
versal harmony,  so  making  His  universe 
as  good  as  it  is  beautiful.  If,  further, 
we  learn  the  lesson  of  the  life  and  death 
of  Christ,  and  believe  that  the  Love  of 
God  shrinks  from  no  sacrifice  in  order 
to  prevail  over  evil,  we  must  feel  that 
the  resources  of  the  Divine  Love  are 
bound  to  secure  at  last  overwhelming 
victory. 

Conception  In  taking  refuge  in  this  solution  of  the 
of  God.  difficulty,  we  have  boldly  assumed  the 
truth  of  the  fundamental  faith  of  Chris- 
tianity. Can  we,  in  any  way,  link  this 
faith  with  the  thoughts  about  the  Universe 
and  the  Supreme  Power  manifested  in  it, 
which  we  ventured  to  derive  from  observa- 
tion of  Nature  and  of  life,  and  from  the 
discoveries  of  science?  We  have  now 
come  to  the  most  difficult  point  of  all. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        47 

How  is  the  Supreme  Power  related  to  the 
Universe  ? 

At  one  time  it  was  held,  almost  univer-  Tran- 
sally,  that  God  may  be  compared  to  a  scendence- 
great  engineer.  The  world  is  a  vast  ma- 
chine, the  work  of  His  design  and  will. 
According  to  this  view,  the  Creator 
stands  outside  and  apart  from  His  work. 
The  doctrine  is  therefore  described  as  a 
doctrine  of  Transcendence.  Crudely  pre- 
sented, it  involves  endless  difficulties.  It 
seems  to  make  God  the  author  of  evil, 
or,  in  the  endeavour  to  escape  from  that 
consequence,  it  describes  Him  as  so  im- 
perfect a  contriver  that  He  is  forced  to 
intervene  from  time  to  time  to  put  things 
right.  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  dis- 
covery of  the  mechanism  of  the  heavens 
seemed  to  give  a  magnificent  picture  of 
a  world  designed  by  a  great  mechan- 
ician, and  so  dazzled  the  minds  of  most 
thinkers  that  these  difficulties  were  not 
fully  appreciated.  But  the  reflection  of 
the  nineteenth  century  brought  them  to 
light,  and  a  crude  form  of  Atheism 
sprang  up,  which  still  exists,  and  finds 
its  justification  in  this  transcendent 
view  of  the  Creator's  relation  to  the 
Universe. 


48       LOYE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

imma-  The  nineteenth  century  saw  also  the 

growth  of  a  great  scientific  doctrine  of 
Creation  as  a  gradual  process.  Herbert 
Spencer  taught  Evolution  as  a  philosophy 
of  the  Universe,  and  Darwin  applied  the 
principle,  in  the  shape  of  a  specific  doc- 
trine, to  the  whole  world  of  organic  life. 
When  interpreted  by  philosophic  theolo- 
gians these  ideas  yielded  a  fresh  concep- 
tion of  the  relation  of  the  Creator  to  the 
world.  It  was  indeed  an  old  theory  come 
back  again.  According  to  it,  God  is  im- 
manent in  the  Universe.  He  is  the  Crea- 
tive Life,  or  Will,  which,  working  in  the 
vast  process,  is  the  source  of  it  all.  This 
grand  idea  was  soon  discerned  to  be  in 
harmony  with  aspects  of  Christian  teach- 
ing which  had  come  down  from  the  earliest 
days.  It  threw  light  on  much  that  had 
been  puzzling  or  obscure:  it  allowed  the 
religious  mind  to  move  freely  in  the  new 
worlds  opened  by  science. 

It  cannot  be  pretended,  however,  that 
the  doctrine  of  the  Immanence  of  God  in 
Creation  solves  the  problem  with  which 
we  are  now  dealing.  Whether  the  world 
be  the  work  of  a  transcendent  Deity,  or 
of  an  all-pervading  Spirit  immanent  in 
the  universal  process,  it  remains  that  the 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       49 

Supreme  Power  has  brought  forth  a  Uni- 
verse in  which  the  great  problem  of  evil 
presses  with  terrific  force  on  every  genera- 
tion, and  concerning  which  there  is  no 
reason,  provided  by  our  scientific  examina- 
tion of  Nature,  for  believing  that  evil  will 
be  ultimately  eliminated. 

The  faith  which  holds  on  to  God  in  Faith. 
unshaken  optimism,  and  trusts  in  His 
power  and  love  in  spite  of  every  dis- 
couragement, will  here  assert  itself.  This 
faith  is  the  inspiring  soul  of  the  highest 
forms  of  religion.  It  springs  out  of  the 
depths  of  man's  spiritual  being,  and  finds 
its  justification  in  that  mystical  com- 
munion with  God  which,  in  some  form  or 
other,  may  be  found  in  all  that  is  best 
in  man's  spiritual  experience.  But  we 
dare  not  base  our  argument  on  this  faith, 
though  we  must  recognise  it  as  a  su- 
premely important  fact. 

How  are  we  to  think  of  the  Universe  as  The  Uni 


First,  it  may  be  a  perfectly  articulated  of  Natural 
system  of  cause  and  effect.  Every  element     ause 
may  be  linked  to  every  other  element  so 
as  to  form  a  complete  natural  order.    In 
this  system  there  is  a  perfect  connexion 
throughout,    so   that   every   event   takes 


50       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

place  as  a  necessary  result  of  what  has 
gone  before.  A  mind  which  grasped  the 
Universe  with  sufficient  fullness  and  ac- 
curacy at  any  moment  could  foretell  all 
the  future.  Those  who  hold  this  view 
must  believe  that  the  will  of  man  is  but 
one  among  the  many  causes  which  direct 
the  course  of  events,  and  that,  like  other 
causes,  the  will  is  strictly  determined  by 
preceding  events.  It  is  not  spontaneous 
— free.  It  is  but  a  link  in  the  chain  of 
necessary  causes,  producing  effects  with 
as  much  inevitableness  as  any  lump  of 
matter  when  it  is  moved  on  being  struck 
by  another :  only,  in  the  case  of  mind,  some 
of  the  causes  are  accompanied  by  psychi- 
cal concomitants.  There  are  feelings  at- 
tached to  certain  movements  of  the  brain 
which  give  us  the  pleasing  illusion  of  free- 
dom. 

Divine  Stated  in  this  way,  the  view  of  the  Uni- 

natfon?1"  verse  as  a  whole  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering may  be  described  as  an  effort  to 
apply  the  methods  of  physical  science 
Universally.  Those  who  hold  this  view 
exclude,  as  a  rule,  all  supposition  of  crea- 
tive will.  They  regard  the  mechanism  of 
cause  and  effect  as  the  final  truth.  But 
there  long  prevailed  among  Christian 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        51 

theologians  a  doctrine  of  the  Universe 
which  was  essentially  the  same,  though  it 
was  expressed  in  theological  language. 
God,  it  was  held,  fore-ordained  every 
event  from  the  beginning.  Some,  who 
hesitated  to  go  so  far  as  this,  held  that 
God,  though  He  did  not  fore-ordain  all 
events,  fore-knew  them  without  exception. 
But  this  latter  view  was  but  a  weak  yield- 
ing of  the  head  to  the  heart.  The  old  Pre- 
destinarians  were  perfectly  right  when 
they  insisted  on  the  strictest  view  of  the 
doctrine,  if  held  at  all.  Starting  with  one 
sole  omnipotent  Will  and  regarding  all 
creation  as  the  outcome  of  its  decrees,  it 
follows  that  the  end  in  every  detail  is  cer- 
tain from  the  beginning.  Also  the  human 
will  is  but  the  instrument  of  the  Divine 
Will,  and  it  is  vain  to  try  to  relieve  the 
Almighty  of  responsibility  for  every  hu- 
man action,  bad  or  good.  Everything  is 
executed  in  perfect  accord  with  the 
original  design.  The  evil  man  as  well  as 
the  good  man  is  a  means  by  which  God 
effects  His  purposes. 

This    doctrine,    whatever    the    efforts  Failure 
made  to  qualify  it  or  soften  it  away,  can  Doctrine 
only  be  consistent  by  making  God  the 
Author  of  evil.    Moreover,  it  destroys  the 


52       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

foundation  on  which  it  is  built;  because 
in  order  to  affirm  the  supremacy  of  the 
Divine  Will,  it  denies  the  reality  of  the 
human  will.  Gaining  our  whole  idea  of 
will  from  our  experience  of  the  faculty  as 
it  exists  in  man,  we  have  no  right  to  at- 
tribute it  to  God  in  a  way  which  deprives 
man  of  it  altogether.  The  theory  breaks 
down  philosophically  as  weD  as  morally. 
The  real  problem  is,  how  to  combine  in 
one  scheme  of  thought  a  whole  in  which 
the  human  will  retains  its  freedom  of 
choice  between  good  and  evil,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  Divine  Will  secures  the 
Universe  from  moral  catastrophe,  and 
realises  the  great  purpose  for  which  crea- 
tion exists.  Here  is  the  difficulty  which 
has  always  confounded  the  speculative 
theologian.  If  he  affirms  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Divine  Will,  he  annihilates  the  hu- 
man will:  if  he  secures  human  freedom, 
he  denies  the  omnipotence  of  God.  This 
dilemma  takes  us  to  the  very  heart  of  the 
great  problem  before  us. 

Anlmper-         Before  proceeding  to  another  mode  of 

cepVon1"      thinking  about  the  Universe,  we  must 

of  the          consider  an  imperfection  in  the  modern 

scientific  conception  of  it  as  a  system  of 

necessarily  connected  causes  and  effects. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        53 

This  naturalistic  doctrine,  as  it  has  been 
called,  has  already  occupied  our  attention. 
We  have  seen  that  it  implies  that  a  mind 
which  grasped  the  Universe  with  sufficient 
fullness  and  accuracy  at  any  moment 
could  foretell  all  the  future.  Every  event 
is  the  necessary  outcome  of  all  that  has 
gone  before.  Is  this  true  as  a  matter  of 
fact?  We  have  already  seen  that  man  is 
able  to  control  the  forces  of  Nature  for  his 
own  purposes,  using  those  forces  to 
modify  one  another.  This  power  has  come 
to  man  as  the  result  of  his  discovery  of 
certain  laws  of  Nature.  When  he  finds 
that  there  is  an  order  in  natural  events 
which  he  can  depend  on,  he  gains  a  very 
large  and  wonderful  freedom  in  directing 
natural  forces  for  his  own  ends.  In  the 
ordinary  experiences  of  life  there  is  there- 
fore no  inconsistency  between  the  uni- 
formity of  natural  law  and  man's  liberty 
of  action.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  uni- 
formity of  Nature  endows  man  with  a  vast 
power  to  alter  the  course  of  Nature  to  suit 
his  design.  It  is  only  an  abstract,  and 
wholly  theoretical,  view  of  natural  law 
which  makes  us  regard  the  world  as  re- 
duced by  that  law  to  a  system  of  rigidly 
determined  causes  and  effects.  The  mo- 


54       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

merit  we  turn  from  our  abstractions  to  the 
concrete  facts  of  our  experience,  we  find 
natural  forces  plastic  in  our  hands.  So 
true  is  this  that  a  recent  development  of 
philosophy  is  able  to  show  very  strong 
reasons  for  believing  that  the  laws  of  Na- 
ture, as  we  call  them,  are  relative  to  our 
mode  of  grasping  our  experience  of  the 
physical  world  with  a  view  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  our  needs.  They  have,  that  is, 
been  shaped  by  the  practical  aims  of  hu- 
man life.1  Thus  the  whole  conception  of 
the  Universe  as  a  necessitated  order  of 
things,  in  which  every  event  is  rigidly  fixed 
from  the  beginning,  breaks  down  com- 
pletely. And,  it  may  be  added,  the  ma- 
terialistic conception  of  man  as  an  ani- 
mated automaton,  whose  movements  are 
accompanied  by  a  series  of  delusive 
psychical  concomitants,  has  been  dis- 
credited by  all  recent  investigations  into 
the  relation  between  the  mind  and  the 
brain.2 

Having  thus  cleared  the  ground  we  are 
in  a  position  to  survey  our  problem  with 
more  unobstructed  vision. 


1  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  Eng.  trans.,  ch.  ii. 
2M'Dougall,    Body    and  Mind;   Bergson,   Hatter   and 
Memory,  Eng.  trans. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        55 

It  is  possible  to  think  of  the  wholeness  A  Larger 
of  the  Universe  in  another  way.  Starting 
with  the  postulate  that  there  is  a  genuine 
spontaneity  in  every  finite  will,  and 
gathering  from  our  experience  that  this 
freedom  of  the  will  is  not  contravened,  but 
rather  subserved,  by  the  uniformity  of  the 
physical  world,  we  gain  the  conception  of 
the  Universe  as  a  spiritual  order  in  which 
the  end  is  not  wholly  determined  from  the 
beginning.  According  to  this  view  God 
does  not  necessitate  the  activities  of  His 
finite  spiritual  children.  The  mechanical 
necessity  of  the  material  world  belongs  to 
that  world  when  regarded  in  abstraction 
from  the  whole  of  reality,  as  in  theoretical 
science.  We  know  in  our  own  experience 
that,  so  far  as  human  power  extends,  the 
course  of  Nature  is  not  fixed,  because  man 
is  able,  within  the  limits  which  belong  to 
his  finite  constitution,  to  alter  it.  The 
whole  Universe  therefore,  including  the 
material  world,  is  subject  to  change  in 
correspondence  with  the  interplay  of  the 
whole  multitude  of  conscious,  voluntary 
agents.  And  as  it  is  impossible  to  know 
beforehand  how  this  interplay  of  free 
agencies  will  work  out,  we  are  bound  to 
conclude  that  there  is  a  real  contingency 


56       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

in  things.    The  history  of  the  Universe  is 
the  history  of  a  Great  Adventure. 

Here  is  a  thought  to  stir  us  to  hope  and 
effort.  But  there  is  also  the  difficulty  that 
the  great  adventure  may  end  in  failure. 
What  reason  have  we  to  think  that  success 
is  assured?  When  the  outlook  on  earth 
is  as  black  as  it  has  been  in  recent  years, 
why  should  we  believe  that  things  are 
going  better,  or  will  ever  go  better,  in  the 
whole  vast  domain  of  being? 

A  Final  The  only  answer  we  can  give,  on  philo- 

Unification.  gQpjjj^j  grounds,  is  that  we  cannot  believe 
in  a  fundamental  contradiction  in  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  things.  There  must  be  a 
final  unity.  If  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
meaning,  if  the  indications  which  point 
to  an  inherent  trustworthiness  in  things 
are  not  utterly  misleading,  there  must  be 
some  great  overruling  truth  which  recon- 
ciles, from  the  highest  point  of  view,  the 
elements  which  stand  in  antagonism  to  one 
another  from  our  point  of  view.  This  is 
the  faith  on  which  rest  all  life,  all  thought, 
all  sanity.  It  means  that  the  Universe  is 
a  whole — a  cosmos,  not  a  chaos. 

Granting  this,  let  us  see  how  it  works 
out  in  relation  to  the  statement  of  our 
problem  which  we  have  now  reached. 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        57 

Every  effort  at  solution  based  on  the 
supposition  that  the  Universe  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  single  omnipotent  will  ends, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  complete  failure.  How 
are  we  then  to  make  any  progress?  By 
considering  the  adequacy  of  our  terms. 
The  result  of  such  an  enquiry  will  show 
that  the  term  Will  is  not  adequate  to  the 
task  imposed  on  it.  Having  arrived  at  the 
conclusion  that  the  Supreme  Power  of  the 
Universe  is  no  mere  unthinking  force,  but 
a  Being  who  expresses  Himself  in  Crea- 
tion and  in  the  overwhelming  beauty  of 
Creation,  and  who  is  also  revealed  to  us  in 
our  study  of  the  natural  world  as  funda- 
mentally trustworthy,  we  are  compelled 
to  think  of  Him  in  terms  of  personality, 
the  highest  terms  we  know.  We  therefore 
speak  of  Him  as  Wise,  Mighty,  Good. 
We  think  of  His  work  as  the  outcome  of 
conscious,  intelligent  Will.  In  this  we  are 
certainly  correct.  But  the  difficulties  we 
have  so  recently  encountered  in  the  appli- 
cation of  the  idea  of  Will  to  His  action 
must  warn  us  that,  however  true  these 
terms  may  be,  they  are  not  good  enough  to 
contain  the  full  truth  of  His  Nature. 

When  we  reflect  calmly  on  the  nature  Limitation 
of  our  knowledge  and  the  impossibility 


58       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

of  framing  any  statement  which  is  not 
open  to  dialectical  criticism,  we  must 
become  aware  that  we,  in  our  life  in  this 
world,  do  not  stand  on  any  mountain- 
peak  of  vision  from  which  we  can  survey 
the  whole  domain  of  being.  There  must 
be  a  Reality  higher  than  we  are.  There 
must  be  a  Unification  beyond  the  grasp 
of  our  thought.  We  use  the  best  language 
we  have  got  and  find  it  insufficient. 

Now  when  we  speak  of  God  as  Omnip- 
otent, we  are  thinking  of  Him  definitely 
in  terms  of  Will:  we  are  assuming  that 
the  language  of  Will  is  able  to  express 
with  exactness  the  fullness  of  His  Nature. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  we  find  ourselves 
in  difficulties  ?  This  consideration  not  only 
shows  why  the  problem  is  bound  to  arise; 
it  also  warns  us  against  supposing  that 
by  any  skilful  definition  of  the  word 
Omnipotence,  or  by  any  limitation  of  its 
sphere,  we  can  escape  trouble. 

Love  the  Let  us  now  turn  from  our  philosophical 

Unifier.  argument  to  the  vision  of  Love  conquer- 
ing evil  which  has  been  given  us  by  our 
Christian  faith.  We  have  seen  that  Love 
in  its  great  work  of  overcoming  the 
antagonism  of  opposing  wills  passes  be- 
yond the  limits  of  exact  definition.  It 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        59 

can  bring  about  a  unification  of  soul  with 
soul  which  nothing  else  in  our  experi- 
ence can  accomplish.  It  can  annihilate 
the  opposition  between  self  and  self,  so 
that  each  finds  its  end  in  the  other.  If 
Love  be  indeed  the  best  expression  we 
can  find  of  the  ultimate  nature  of  God, 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that,  however 
powerful  evil  may  be,  it  cannot  finally 
prevail.  Love,  supreme  and  all-embrac- 
ing, and  with  all  eternity  before  it,  will 
surely  find  out  a  way  to  overcome  every 
opposition.  If  we  believe  that  God  is 
Love,  we  must  believe  that  He  cannot  fail 
in  bringing  about  a  universal  reconcilia- 
tion, and  so  creating  that  Kingdom  of 
Love  which  is  the  summum  bonum  of  all 
creation.  Love  as  it  is  in  God  is,  if  this 
be  true,  that  which  brings  into  unity  the 
multitude  of  wills.  It  is  the  great  bond 
of  union  in  the  spiritual  world. 

Here  we  have  an  indication  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  final  truth  for  which  we  are 
seeking.  When  we  keep  strictly  to  the 
language  of  personality  we  are  unable  to 
get  beyond  the  antagonism  of  personal 
wills :  we  can  find  no  means  of  overcoming 
it.  But,  we  have  seen,  there  must  be  a 
Higher  Reality  in  God.  What  is  its 


60       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

nature?  Surely  it  is  now  clear  that  it 
must  be  a  capacity  to  gather  up  into  one, 
in  a  higher  form  of  life,  all  the  discon- 
nected warring  elements  of  the  spiritual 
world.  The  great  problem  which  con- 
founds us  can  be,  and  will  be,  solved  in 
God.  It  must  be,  if  there  is  to  be  coher- 
ence, or  meaning,  anywhere.  For  every- 
thing in  heaven  and  earth  depends  upon 
its  solution.  There  must  be  an  all-inclu- 
sive Life  in  which  we  and  all  created 
things  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. 
We  cannot  think  this  out  in  the  form  of  a 
consistent  philosophy,  because  we  do  not 
stand  high  enough  in  the  scale  of  being; 
but  we  can  feel  it  in  all  the  experiences 
of  love  and  sacrifice,  we  can  find  it  flash- 
ing on  the  consciousness  of  the  mystic  as 
he  loses  himself  in  the  beatific  vision,  we 
can  hear  it  in  the  song  of  the  poet  as  he 
discerns  the  presence  which  disturbs  him 
with  the  joy  of  elevated  thought. 
Meaning  We  can  now  understand  the  true  mean- 

ing  of  the  terms  Omnipotent  and  Omnis- 
cient. They  are  ways  of  indicating  the  all- 
inclusiveness  of  the  life  of  God.  They  use 
a  very  imperfect  language,  the  language 
expressive  of  personality  as  it  exists  in 
man.  They  think  of  God  as  One  who 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE       61 

knows  and  wills,  and  are  so  far  correct, 
but  they  omit  that  higher  side  of  God's 
nature  which  passes  beyond  all  defini- 
tion in  terms  of  knowledge  and  will.  As 
applied  to  God  these  terms  are  poetic 
rather  than  scientific.  And  all  our 
troubles  with  them  arise  from  the  fact 
that  we  insist  on  using  them  as  if  they 
were  scientific. 

One  important  consequence  of  their 
imperfection  is  that  they  separate  the  life 
of  man  from  the  life  of  God,  and  give 
the  impression  that  God  is  a  remote,  all- 
knowing,  Almighty  Sovereign,  reigning 
in  solitary  glory  and  untroubled  happi- 
ness in  some  far-off  heaven,  while  man  is 
toiling  and  groaning  in  the  labours  and 
sorrows  of  his  life  on  earth.  Here  is  a 
very  great  mischief  which  has,  for  many, 
undone  a  large  part  of  the  good  of  Chris- 
tianity. God  is  not  remote  from  us.  We 
share  His  life  and  He  shares  ours.  Truly 
He  is  above  us,  but  it  is  in  the  order  of 
being,  not  by  reason  of  any  sovereign 
aloofness.  He  is  Life  of  our  life,  and 
Home  of  our  spirits.  In  all  our  afflictions, 
He  is  afflicted;  and  in  all  our  joys,  He 
takes  part.  His  love  encircles  us,  and  will 
never  let  us  go,  even  though  our  wilful 


62       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

hearts  may  often  rebel.  That  Love  will 
finally  prevail  over  all  rebellions. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  terms 
Love  and  Omnipotence  point  to  precisely 
the  same  truth,  but  Love  is  a  higher,  more 
perfect,  expression  of  this  truth  than 
Omnipotence.  Love  is  not  capable  of 
exact  scientific  definition  for  the  very  same 
reason  that  leads  us  to  believe  that  our 
thought  cannot  fully  comprehend  God. 
Love  is  that  which  overcomes  the  isolation 
of  souls.  It  creates  a  bond  of  union 
among  selves.  It  possesses  always,  in 
some  degree,  the  same  kind  of  inclusive- 
ness  that  God  possesses  in  the  highest 
degree.  Therefore  Love  expresses  the 
nature  of  God  as  nothing  else  can  ex- 
press it. 

The  All-  How,  then,   are   we   to  think  of   the 

whole — the  Universe,  included  in  the  all- 
encircling  life  of  God?  It  is  not  a  me- 
chanical system  in  which  every  event  is 
settled  beforehand.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  fate.  It  is  a  multitude  of  spirits 
sharing  a  common  life.  On  the  lower  side 
this  common  life  is  presented  to  us  as  the 
vast  world  of  Nature.  From  a  higher 
point  of  view  it  is  the  all-embracing  life  of 
God.  And  God  is  the  All-inclusive,  not 


LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE        63 

by  virtue  of  a  mere  selfhood  standing  in 
perpetual  antithesis  to  the  natural  world, 
as  some  idealist  theories  represent;  but 
because  He  is  higher  (properly  the  High- 
est) in  the  Order  of  Reality,  and  there- 
fore more  than  Personal.1  Possessing  all 
the  attributes  which  constitute  person- 
ality, He  yet,  as  the  Supreme  All-inclu- 
sive, passes  beyond  personality.  Within 
his  super-personal  life  the  Universe 
moves  forward  to  an  end  which  is  deter- 
mined by  the  Divine  Freedom  co-operat- 
ing with  the  innumerable  freedoms  of  all 
spiritual  beings.  The  end  is  not  settled 
beforehand,  because  it  depends  on  an  in- 
numerable multitude  of  free  decisions. 
The  life  of  the  Universe  is  a  vast  adven- 
ture. All  that  we  can  really  know  about 
the  end  is  that  it  will  be  the  triumph  of 
Love.  It  must  be,  because  God  is  all- 
inclusive. 

Thus  we  realise  the  meaning  of  the 
term  Omnipotence.  It  means  that  God's 
Nature  is  such  that  things  cannot  go 
finally  wrong.  It  means  that  all  oppos- 
ing wills  must  and  shall  be  subjugated  by 
the  power  of  Supreme  Love. 

1  On  this  conception  see  the  writer's  God  and  Freedom 
in  Human  Experience. 


64       LOVE  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

But  to  reach  the  triumph  of  love  in  the 
great  final  consummation,  measureless 
sufferings  may  have  to  be  endured,  meas- 
ureless evils  overcome.  Only  by  the  awful 
path  of  sacrifice  can  the  Eternal  Love 
move  to  victory  over  the  oppositions  of 
perverse  wills.  Here  is  the  eternal  signifi- 
cance of  the  Cross  of  Christ. 

But  for  such  an  end  NO  sacrifice  is 
too  great.  It  is  all  worth  while.  Life  is 
worth  living,  and  death  is  worth  dying, 
and  every  pain  is  worth  enduring;  for 
Love  is  supreme  in  the  Universe,  and  the 
end  for  which  Love  is  working  will  surely 
be  attained. 


Ill 

THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE 
FITTEST 

BY    LILY    DOUGALL 
(Author  of  "Pro  Christo  et  Ecclesia") 

IN  the  last  few  years  we  have  all  met 
men  and  women,  not  without  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  thinkers,  who  asserted  that 
the  war,  with  its  unreasoning  passions, 
recrudescent  superstitions  and  tyrannies, 
its  harnessing  of  so  much  applied  science 
to  destructive  ends,  had  proved,  either 
that  the  evolutionary  process  is  aimless 
and  chaotic  and  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  human  progress,  or  that  the  condition 
of  further  advance  is  frankly  to  repudiate 
our  present  moral  values  in  favour  of 
class-  and  race-selfishness  and  the  will  to 
dominate  our  fellow-man. 

The  present  paper  is  an  enquiry  as  to 
whether  a  steady  tendency  toward  any- 
thing that  may  be  called  good  can  be 
discovered  in  the  processes  of  biological 
development  as  a  whole;  and,  if  so,  to 

65 


66     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

what   further   human   development  that 
line  of  tendency  points. 
What  is  the       Whether  or  no  there  is  any  breach  in 
the   continuity  of  development  between 


Natural        "star-dust"  and  the  beginning  of  life  it 

Evolution?     .  •          -C*  u 

is  not  my  purpose  to  enquire.    Jb  or  such 

a  breach  we  have  only  negative  evidence, 
and  it  is  only  romantic  persons  who  build 
much  on  negative  evidence.  Personally  I 
see  no  more  difficulty  in  expecting  to 
discover  the  development  of  life  from 
what  we  call  "the  inanimate"  than  in  ac- 
cepting the  fact  of  some  of  the  subsequent 
changes  within  the  sphere  of  animate 
existence  which  we  know  have  been 
brought  about  by  biological  development. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  we  know,  at  any  rate, 
that  there  is  no  real  breach  of  continuity 
between  the  most  primitive  forms  of  life 
and  humanity.  We  know,  too,  that  man 
as  an  animal,  since  he  reached  the  human 
stage,  has  done  far  more  to  alter  other 
forms  of  life  on  this  earth  than  has  the  oak 
or  the  rose,  the  horse  or  the  bee  ;  indeed,  he 
has  even  done  something  to  modify  the 
weather  conditions  of  "the  great  globe  it- 
self and  all  that  it  inhabit."  We  are  justi- 
fied, then,  in  taking  man  as  Nature's 
masterpiece,  and,  having  accepted  within 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     67 

limits  the  story  science  tells  of  the  road  he 
has  so  far  travelled,  we  shall  proceed  to 
enquire  whither  natural  evolution  would 
appear  to  be  taking  him. 
Perfect  correspondence  with  environ-  What  is  the 

.    .     ,T  j,  AT    ,  -  Goal  of 

ment  is  the  aim  of  Nature  for  every  or-  Human 
ganism.  This  is  a  biological  common-  Solution? 
place.  Adopting  this  principle  as  our 
starting-point,  we  may  reasonably  ask 
what  we  may  conceive  the  tendency  of 
human  development  to  be.  And  if  we 
conceive  some  powerful  intelligence  be- 
hind Nature,  we  are  still  more  impelled 
to  ask  what,  in  view  of  past  evolution, 
should  we  reasonably  assume  to  be  the 
further  purpose  of  that  intelligence  with 
regard  to  man.  Humanity  at  present 
corresponds  very  imperfectly  with  its  en- 
vironment. From  this  imperfection  arise 
all  those  calamities  in  which  humanity 
fights  a  losing  battle  with  the  forces  of 
destruction,  and  succumbs.  But  if  there 
can  be  said  to  be  any  ascertainable  aim  in 
natural  evolution,  it  must  be  the  attain- 
ment of  a  more  perfect  correspondence  of 
man  with  his  whole  terrestrial  environ- 

ment-  What  Does 

It  is  of  first  importance,  then,  that  we  such  Corre- 

should  enquire  what  such  correspondence  involve?0* 


68     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 


(i)  Bodily 
Fitness. 


(ii)  Mental 
Fitness. 


would  involve.  What  type  of  man  does 
our  present  degree  of  intelligence  tell  us 
the  race  must  produce  if  humanity  is  to 
correspond  perfectly  with  its  environ- 
ment? 

We  shall  agree  that  the  most  funda- 
mental requisite  is  physical  health  and 
strength.  Any  race  of  plants  or  animals 
which  succumbs  easily  to  blight  or  disease 
fails  to  persist.  By  some  system  of 
eugenics  and  hygienic  environment  it 
might  be  possible,  in  the  course  of  a  very 
few  generations,  to  produce  a  type  larger, 
stronger,  more  beautiful  and  more  prolific 
than  man  now  is — a  type  also  more  im- 
mune from  disease.  Such  a  type  would 
mark  a  fresh  stage  in  development. 

But  physical  fitness  is  not  enough. 
Herd  animals  roaming  fertile  plains  in 
the  past  have  exceeded  anything  that 
man  has  attained  in  health  and  strength, 
beauty,  fecundity,  and  immunity  from 
disease,  and  were  yet  at  the  mercy  of  cold 
and  famine,  and,  above  all,  of  man  and  his 
weapons.  Mere  physical  fitness  might  be 
developed  without  increasing  intellectual 
power.  As  it  was  by  reasoning  from 
observation  that  men  learned  to  overcome 
difficulties  of  climate  by  means  of  gar- 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     69 

merits,  huts  and  fire,  to  use  tools  and 
weapons,  and  to  make  the  simplest  rules 
of  social  organisation,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
ascendency  of  the  human  race  on  the  earth 
has  been  due  to  the  development  of  intel- 
lect. Man's  further  correspondence  with 
his  physical  environment  must  be  by 
means  of  applied  science — of  which  it  may 
be  here  observed  that  eugenics  itself  is  one 
of  the  youngest  and  crudest  branches. 
We  must,  as  a  race,  learn  not  only  to  com- 
bat but  to  prevent  disease,  not  only  to 
reap  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  but  to  im- 
prove those  fruits  and  increase  their  yield. 
We  must  learn  either  so  to  adapt  our 
industries  to  the  weather,  or  so  to  control 
the  weather,  that  droughts  and  floods 
shall  no  longer  bring  us  destruction.  We 
must  learn  to  make  the  ocean  not  only  a 
highway,  but  a  safe  highway;  and  the 
same  must  be  done  for  the  highway  of  the 
air;  and  many  other  discoveries  we  must 
make. 

Now  all  this  will  mean  a  high  degree  of 
reasoning  power  and  scientific  imagina- 
tion. Therefore  the  type  of  man  to  which 
the  lines  of  tendency  in  Nature  point  must 
be  not  only  physically  but  intellectually 
superior.  If  we  conceive  of  such  a  superior 


70     SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

class  developed  in  all  countries  which  have 
now  a  high  civilisation,  we  shall  perceive 
that  they  would  be  markedly  different 
from  the  majority  who  either  had  not 
been  selected  for  improving,  or  from  vari- 
ous motives  had  refused  to  improve,  them- 
selves. Perhaps  most  of  us  would  need 
to  think  of  ourselves  as  remaining  in  the 
inferior  grade. 

(iii)  Ability  Again,  before  the  higher  grade  of  men 
oflSerior  can  ^e  ^ree  from  peril  of  disease,  false 
Races,  ideas  and  social  ferment,  the  problem  of 
the  more  weak,  more  ignorant  and  back- 
ward members  of  the  human  race  must  be 
grappled  with  and  solved.  The  militarist 
has  always  a  very  simple  answer  to  the 
problem  of  inferior  races — subjugate  or 
else  destroy.  He  is,  indeed,  a  simple  per- 
son, and  can  give  no  other  sort  of  answer. 
But  as  long  as  multitudes  of  the  lower 
type  exist  anywhere  upon  the  earth  they 
will  be  a  constant  source  of  physical  dis- 
ease and  false  ideas,  which  might  attack 
the  children  of  the  higher  type  unless  they 
could  be  completely  segregated  from 
them.  Would  such  segregation  be  pos- 
sible? 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  strictest  barrier 
the  world  has  been  able  to  set  up  has  been 


SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     71 

caste.  This  may  prevent  intermarriage 
and  social  companionship;  it  cannot  pre- 
vent infection  of  physical  disease  or  of 
passions  and  ideas.  When  rage  or  panic 
seize  a  populace  no  caste  within  it  will 
remain  unmoved.  Of  two  classes,  either 
may  be  the  object  of  the  other's  rage,  but 
the  rage  will  be  infectious.  Either  may 
be  the  object  of  the  other's  fear,  but  the 
fear  will  become  common  to  both.  Each 
may  express  its  emotions  in  its  own  way, 
but  the  emotion,  if  it  be  passionate,  will 
surge  from  class  to  class.  Ideas  in  the 
same  way  leap  the  barrier  of  caste. 

Intellect,  which  is  the  eye  of  the 
mind,  may  originate  evil  as  well  as  good. 
The  unintellectual  herd  animal  is  never 
tempted  to  take  up  with  either  the  better 
or  the  worse  habits  of  those  of  another 
herd.  He  cannot  form  attractive  pictures 
of  novelty  within  his  mind  and  brood  upon 
them  until  they  obsess  him.  But  man, 
the  more  mentally  developed  he  is,  the 
more  is  he  open,  through  a  lively  imagina- 
tion, to  the  forces  of  suggestion,  imitation 
and  sympathy. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  if  we  had 
upon  the  earth  a  race  of  beings  physically 
so  much  superior,  and  mentally  so  much 


72     SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

more  active,  than  we  now  are,  that  they 
were  able  to  dominate  the  forces  of  Na- 
ture, their  children  would  be  quick  to 
observe  and  keen  to  interest  themselves  in 
all  humanity.  They  would  discover  a 
thousand  reasons  for  companionship  with 
the  rest  of  us.  Through  compassion,  mere 
love  of  novelty,  affection,  or  through  lust, 
contamination  with  the  notions  of  such 
civilisations  as  we  now  have  would  take 
place.  The  sons  of  the  gods  would  take 
to  themselves  wives  of  the  daughters  of 
men:  the  daughters  of  the  gods,  "divinely 
tall  and  most  divinely  fair,"  would  develop 
most  unaccountable  attraction  for  inferior 
men.  The  dream  of  the  eugenist,  or  in- 
deed of  any  other  scientist,  can  never  be 
fully  realised  until  the  stupid,  weak  or  un- 
wholesome human  beings  harboured  by 
our  present  civilisation  have  left  the  earth. 
By  (a)  But  even  supposing  a  class  of  supermen 

Means.  could  effectively  solve  this  problem  of  a 
subjugated  race,  it  appears  to  be  a  pure 
assumption  that  the  quality  that  enables  a 
man  to  subjugate  and  domineer  will  al- 
ways be  the  quality  supremely  necessary 
for  persistence  and  development.  Even 
the  conquering  races  of  history  have,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  passed  away.  Does  his- 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     73 

tory  show  that  any  people  who  have  so 
established  their  dominions  by  conquest  as 
to  have  no  fear  of  invasion  or  revolution, 
have  thereupon  settled  down  to  agree 
among  themselves?  We  all  remember 
toiling  in  our  childhood  over  the  complex 
conditions  that  marked  the  internal  dis- 
integration of  military  states.  In  the  his- 
tory of  Rome,  for  instance,  it  was  com- 
paratively easy  to  render  some  account  of 
our  lesson  while  we  were  following  the 
exhilarating  accounts  of  conquering 
armies;  but  when  it  came  to  the  quarrels 
of  factions  in  the  victorious  State,  we  re- 
member what  a  sense  came  over  us  of  a 
warring  world  of  which  we  could  form  no 
satisfying  imaginative  picture.  If  we 
look  at  the  matter  psychologically  we  are 
bound  to  admit  that  any  set  of  people 
trained  in  habits  of  warfare  will  naturally 
tend  to  continue  to  settle  their  differences 
by  that  method.  They  will  remain  united 
only  so  long  as,  either  in  reality  or  in  their 
belief,  they  are  opposed  by  an  external 
foe.  Take  away  the  foe  and  you  will  not 
give  peace  to  the  belligerent.  Belliger- 
ence is  a  habit  of  mind;  it  is  more  than 
that,  it  is  the  outcome  of  the  deep,  funda- 
mental animal  instinct  of  combativeness, 


74     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

which,  if  turned  against  mankind  and 
trained  into  the  active  habit  of  killing  men, 
will  not  subside  into  quiescence  simply 
because  external  enemies  are  vanquished. 

The  soldier  who  is  so  trained  that  skill 
in  arms  and  strategy  are  both  the  game 
and  the  purpose  of  his  life  has  naturally 
small  faith  in  other  methods  of  dealing 
with  an  obstinate  opponent.  The  super- 
man, if  he  is  to  conquer  the  world  by  arms, 
must  be  such  a  soldier;  and  if  he  is  such  a 
soldier,  when  he  has  conquered  the  world 
he  will  not  agree  with  all  his  fellows  as  to 
the  best  form  of  government,  nor  settle 
down  in  loyalty  and  obedience  to  a  gov- 
ernment he  dislikes.  Such  supermen 
would  inevitably  practise  the  noble  art  of 
war  upon  one  another.  They  will  indeed 
have  been  trained  to  believe  war  to  be 
necessary  for  a  man's  right  correspond- 
ence with  his  environment ;  it  could  not  be 
otherwise. 

But  should  war  once  break  out  between 
the  supermen  of  the  scientist's  dream, 
their  end  is  near.  War  and  eugenics  can- 
not be  practised  together  at  any  stage  of 
development,  for  warfare  eliminates  the 
most  fit,  and  that  usually  before  they  be- 
come parents.  It  contributes  to  the  popu- 


SUKVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     75 

lation  not  only  the  maimed,  the  halt,  the 
blind,  but  the  neurasthenic.  If  the  ever 
fresh  discoveries  of  science  are  to  render 
men's  engines  of  war  more  and  more  de- 
structive, if  the  higher  vitality  and  intelli- 
gence produced  by  the  eugenist  are  to 
be  exercised  in  fiercer  and  fiercer  conflict, 
the  race  of  supermen  must  soon  destroy 
itself. 

It  thus  becomes  evident  that  if  man  is  (b)  Social 
to  correspond  more  and  more  perfectly  Means- 
with  his  environment  he  must  outgrow 
the  use  of  such  weapons  as  will  finally  be 
turned  upon  himself,  and  learn  to  get  rid 
of   backward   humanity   by    some    other 
method  than  subjugation  or  destruction. 

We  have  seen  that  the  race  which  is  to 
inherit  the  earth  must  develop  superior 
physique  and  superior  mind.  And  this  is 
not  enough ;  it  must  also  develop  superior 
social  talent.  The  leaders  of  the  human 
family  must  have  social  faculties  and 
social  skill  which  will  enable  them  to  get 
rid  of  the  inferior  races  by  getting  rid  of 
racial  inferiority.  To  discover  what  social 
faculties  and  what  skill  would  be  required 
to  raise  the  whole  human  race,  let  us  make 
a  brief  survey  of  the  past  progress  of 
civilisation. 


76     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

The  story         Let  us  trace  this  general  progress  as 

Progress!  seen  *n  ^e  case  °^  an  apple-grower — a 
man  who  devotes  a  certain  bit  of  ground 
to  apples  in  order  to  eat  them,  barter  them, 
or  distribute  them  over  the  community  in 
exchange  for  an  income.  Historically  we 
first  meet  this  gentleman  building  his  rude 
hut  under  a  wild  apple  tree ;  in  fact,  he  is 
perhaps  at  this  stage  a  woman  (as  an 
Irishman  might  say) ;  for  men  are  migra- 
tory and  husbands  are  various.  She  builds 
her  hut  because  she  must  shelter  and  rear 
her  children;  and  she  throws  stones  at 
other  women  from  adjacent  huts  if  they 
try  to  take  the  apples.  Perhaps  she  in- 
vents the  first  rude  bow  or  sling.  In  later 
generations  we  find  one  man  settled  down 
with  one  woman  under  the  tree.  He 
defends  the  property  now  from  other 
couples  in  the  same  group.  These  tree 
people  are  slow  in  forming  common  laws, 
but  by  degrees  it  is  found  convenient  that 
a  number  of  men  with  apple  trees  should 
agree  not  to  steal  from  one  another,  and 
to  join  together  to  defend  their  property 
against  external  foes.  At  this  stage  they 
are  beginning  to  improve  the  culture  of 
grains  and  fruits;  but  let  us  talk  only  of 
our  typical  apple.  Obviously  here,  for 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     77 

the  first  time,  there  is  a  little  leisure  and 
wit  to  devote  to  the  cleaning  of  bark  and 
the  pruning  of  branches  and  the  sowing 
of  pips.  By  degrees,  as  the  community 
becomes  more  consolidated,  and  there  are 
longer  periods  without  invasion,  the  sys- 
tem of  grafting  is  invented.  The  apples 
become  sweeter  and  larger,  and  are  of 
more  value  to  the  community.  No  great 
advance,  however,  will  be  made  as  long  as 
the  owner  has  to  spend  a  part  of  his  time 
in  warlike  exercises  and  a  part  in  actual 
war,  and  while  he  still  knows  that  he  and 
his  rights  of  possession  are  liable  at  any 
time  to  be  swept  away  by  a  stronger 
enemy.  When,  with  the  next  advance  in 
civilisation,  it  is  decided  to  set  apart  a 
certain  number  of  men  for  war,  and  allow 
the  apple-grower  to  concentrate  on  apples, 
the  bit  of  land  becomes  more  prolific  and 
the  owner  richer.  Ah,  richer!  Compara- 
tive wealth  brings  in  a  new  set  of  thieves. 
The  poorer  men  of  his  own  community 
have  now  to  be  guarded  against,  as  well  as 
hostile  armies.  If  he  began  with  a  friendly 
alliance  of  men  who  all  had  equal  wealth, 
it  is  different  now.  Some  have  failed;  he 
has  prospered;  and  he  sets  up  a  wall,  a 
gun,  and  a  man-trap  to  defend  his  goods 


78     SUKVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

against  the  vicious  poor.  This,  again, 
takes  part  of  his  time.  His  cultural 
operations  are  not  purely  scientific  until 
another  lot  of  men  are  set  apart  to  defend 
the  orchards  of  the  rich  from  the  thieving 
class  of  their  own  nation.  This  gives  a 
security  never  known  before,  and  what 
may  be  called  the  real  science  of  pomi- 
culture begins.  Science  is  the  accumula- 
tion and  classification  of  the  world's 
knowledge  upon  any  subject,  with  fresh 
observation  and  experiment  on  the  basis 
of  this  tabulated  knowledge.  Science  can 
only  progress  when  a  community  has  ar- 
rived at  a  large  degree  of  security,  and 
when  living  is  no  longer  a  fight  for  the 
necessities  of  life. 

Perhaps  we  are  inclined  to  think  we 
have  now  brought  the  apple-grower  to 
such  a  degree  of  success  that  nothing  fur- 
ther is  to  be  desired  or  looked  for.  Let  us 
consider.  He  is  paying  a  large  tax  now 
for  army,  navy  and  police,  money  which, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  apple-growing, 
could  be  better  spent  upon  scientific  appli- 
ances of  all  sorts,  and  investigation  into 
the  nature  and  cure  of  apple  diseases  and 
apple  pests.  But  that  is  not  all.  The 
police,  however  active,  do  not  exterminate 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     79 

the  vicious  or  careless  poor,  and  to  these 
belong  ill-kept  apple  trees,  which  are  a 
fruitful  source  of  disease  germs  and  pests, 
travelling  lightly  on  the  highway  of  the 
air  and  ever  making  fresh  havoc  with  the 
rich  man's  trees.  Much  of  his  time  and 
money  is  spent  upon  the  war  of  defence 
against  these  invisible  marauders.  Again, 
a  man's  mind  does  its  best  work  when  his 
spirits  are  tranquil  or  exhilarated,  and 
this  man's  spirits  are  constantly  worried, 
not  only  by  these  same  pests,  but  by  the 
fact  that  there  is  always  a  certain  amount 
of  thieving  in  his  community  which  the 
police,  however  efficient  and  well  paid, 
cannot  prevent.  The  spirit  of  the  thief  is 
infectious.  It  gets  into  trade ;  it  gets  into 
labour;  and  as  long  as  detection  and  coer- 
cion are  the  methods  relied  upon  for  fight- 
ing it,  it  will  be  there  to  defy  them  by 
invisible  means — the  over-reaching  and 
deception  of  buyer  and  seller,  the  laziness 
of  the  labourer.  The  man  who  is  really 
keen  to  get  at  Nature's  best  secrets  con- 
cerning apples,  and  to  produce  the  best 
and  the  most  from  any  bit  of  ground,  can- 
not long  be  either  jolly  or  serene  with 
pests  and  dishonesty  bred  at  home.  We 
had  almost  forgotten  the  national  enemies, 


80     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

but  they  are  still  a  menace.  What  is  the 
condition  to-day  of  the  apple-orchards  of 
Belgium,  of  Northern  France,  of  Serbia, 
of  Roumania,  of  Poland,  of  south-east 
Russia?  And  yet  in  all  these  countries 
security  was  supposed  to  be  bought  by 
setting  apart  a  large  number  of  men  to 
defend  the  national  boundaries  from  hos- 
tile armies  and  the  orchards  from  thieves. 
We  are  to-day  living  in  the  stage  of  civili- 
sation to  which  we  have  brought  our  apple- 
grower.  Clearly  his  plight  is  not  satisfac- 
tory. If  we  consider  how  he  could  learn 
to  correspond  better  and  better  with  his 
environment,  it  is  obvious  that  without  the 
financial  tax  on  his  resources  and  the  men- 
tal worry  caused  by  the  dishonesty  of  his 
community  he  could,  even  in  times  of 
peace,  produce  a  better  apple  and  a  better 
orchard,  while  in  war  areas,  under  present 
conditions,  he  and  his  apples  are  wholly 
destroyed. 

If  we  go  back  we  shall  find  that  the 
first  security  of  the  primitive  apple- 
grower  was  procured  by  his  social  talent 
rather  than  by  his  belligerence.  As  long 
as  he  defended  his  apple  tree  single- 
handed  he  had  no  security,  and  it  produced 
only  small,  sour  fruit;  it  was  only  as  his 


SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     81 

social  alliance  with  a  larger  and  larger 
number  of  human  beings  was  secured  that 
the  peaceful  periods  of  successful  apple- 
growing  became  longer  and  longer.  It 
may  be  urged  that  this  was  because  the 
larger  community,  and  then  the  larger 
nation,  had  stronger  armies  and  finally  a 
stronger  police  force.  That  is  true,  but 
it  is  not  the  whole  truth,  because  the 
strength  of  the  large  army  and  the  large 
police  force  depended  quite  as  much  upon 
the  development  of  social  virtues  in  those 
men  as  upon  their  warlike  training  and 
equipment.  If  as  large  an  army  or  police 
force  could  have  been  got  together  out  of 
savage  tribes,  no  amount  of  training  in 
war  or  of  equipment  would  have  kept 
them  from  quarrelling  with  one  another. 
It  is  therefore  only  by  the  development  of 
a  reasonable  temper  and  a  regard  for  the 
common  interest  within  the  area  of  the 
nation  that  a  large  measure  of  security 
has  been  realised.  Is  it  not,  then,  strictly 
scientific  to  assume,  as  a  working  hypoth- 
esis, that  it  is  by  the  further  develop- 
ment of  these  social  virtues,  in  himself  and 
in  all  other  men,  that  the  apple-grower 
will  attain  the  higher  ideal  which  he  is  now 
able  to  conceive,  and  that,  with  perfect 


82    SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

security  and  a  greater  vital  energy,  he  and 
his  fellows  may  at  last  succeed  so  well  that 
there  may  not  be  a  little  child  anywhere 
on  this  earth's  surface  that  will  not  have 
the  pleasure  of  eating  a  large,  juicy  apple 
every  day? 

The  upshot  of  this  survey  is  that  if  man 
is  to  correspond  to  his  environment  he 
must  learn  to  correspond  entirely  to  its 
chief  factor,  his  fellow-man;  and  to  do 
that  he  must  learn  to  deal  with  hostility 
and  dishonesty  by  some  social  means  more 
effective  than  the  anti-social  way  of  de- 
struction or  suppression. 

Dangers  Psychology  has  taught  us  that  instinc- 

pression.  tive  impulses  which  are  driven  under 
through  fear — i.e.  suppressed  against  the 
will  and  emotional  tendencies  of  the  sub- 
ject— produce  evil  consequences  in  the 
subject,  and  hence  in  the  community. 
This  is  equally  true  whether  the  impulse 
be  for  what  the  apple-grower,  or  modern 
moralist,  would  call  good  or  evil.  The 
instincts  themselves  are  non-moral,  for 
they  grew  lusty  in  the  race  before  those 
social  values  we  call  moral  were  formed. 
They  are  all  capable  of  wholesome  (i.e.  of 
social)  or  unwholesome  (i.e.  of  anti- 
social) satisfaction.  If  anti-social  satis- 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST    83 

faction  is  sought,  it  is  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  society  either  to  kill  off  the 
seeker  or  to  educate  him  to  find  a  social 
satisfaction  for  his  instinctive  impulses. 
Merely  to  suppress  his  impulses  and  save 
him  alive  is  to  keep  a  plague  spot  of  moral, 
mental  and  physical  evil  in  active  ferment. 
We  must  ultimately  find  some  other  way 
of  dealing  with  objectionable  habits  and 
propensities  than  the  way  of  the  sword 
and  the  prison. 

Our  only  course  is  so  to  develop,  by 
education  and  political  arrangements,  the 
social  virtues  of  ourselves  and  all  our 
neighbours  that  our  natural  instincts  will 
find  wholesome  expression,  and  the  im- 
pulses arising  from  them  be  trained  to 
serve  social  ends;  and  this  must  be  done, 
not  by  any  external  authority,  but  by  these 
persons  themselves.  We  must  find  some 
way  of  persuading  and  helping  every  man 
to  reform  himself  from  within. 

And  what  is  true  within  the  nation  will 
obviously  be  equally  true  in  international 
affairs.  The  impulse  to  be  a  criminal 
nation  must  be  so  dealt  with  by  educatiofx 
and  example  that  the  nation  feeling  the" 
impulse  will  control  and  supersede  it. 

In  such  persuasion  of  criminal  neigh- 


84     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

bours  or  criminal  nations  what  part  can 
the  sword,  the  gun  and  the  man-trap  play? 
Or  even  if  all  swords  are  beaten  into 
policemen's  batons,  what  part  is  the  baton 
to  play?  We  are  not  here  considering 
ethical  values,  still  less  making  moral  or 
religious  assumptions;  we  are  simply 
enquiring  how  the  apple-grower  may  cor- 
respond with  his  environment  of  domestic 
thieves  and  hostile  nations.  If  our  psy- 
chological premises  be  correct,  it  is  evident 
that  the  area  of  the  sword  and  the  baton 
must  be  gradually  reduced  until  the  crimi- 
nal maniac,  among  individuals  and  among 
nations,  is  regarded  as  the  only  fit  subject 
for  their  exercise. 

Man  a  Many  will  say,  "That  might  be  all  very 

Animalf  we^  ^  ^  were  possible,  but  it  is  not.  Man 
has  always  been  a  fighting  animal  and 
always  will  be.  Without  the  outlet  for 
his  fighting  instinct  he  would  never  de- 
velop his  other  powers."  There  is  both 
truth  and  folly  in  this  retort ;  and  first  let 
us  consider  the  element  of  truth. 

We  have  seen  that  man's  combative 
instinct  is  one  of  the  deepest  in  his  nature, 
and  that  it  must  always  have  play.  It 
does  not  follow  that  he  need  always  be 
fighting  with  his  fellow-man.  It  is  man's 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     85 

combative  instinct  that  makes  him  refuse 
to  be  beaten  by  circumstances  of  any  sort. 
In  all  adventure,  in  all  enterprise,  the 
combative  instinct  comes  into  play,  for 
it  is  the  desire  to  overcome  rather  than 
yield  to  circumstance  that  makes  advance 
possible.  If  man  had  more  ambition  to  do 
and  dare  in  the  fields  of  applied  sociology 
and  the  other  sciences,  he  would  get  full 
exercise  for  the  combative  instinct  without 
quarrelling  with  his  fellow-man.  If  there 
are  such  beings  as  angels  in  a  condition 
we  call  heaven,  they  cannot  accomplish 
any  difficult  task  without  vanquishing 
difficulties;  and  if  they  have  no  difficult 
tasks  they  are  not  in  our  spiritual  universe. 

Even  in  early  stages  of  biological  prog-  HOW  De 
ress  each  step  up  has  been  taken  by  crea- 
tures  who  refused  to  yield  to  circumstance. 
At  every  stage  in  evolution  Nature  has, 
so  to  say,  put  out  an  advertisement: 
"Wanted,  a  number  of  combative  folk 
prepared  for  adventure  at  all  costs."  She 
did  this  when  all  the  little  life  germs  in 
the  warm  mud  were  hesitating  as  to 
whether  they  would  go  in  search  of  food 
or  wait  for  it,  and  those  who  answered  the 
advertisement  became  the  ancestors  of  the 
animal  world.  Another  time  when  she 


86     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

advertised  for  adventurers,  some  of  the 
water  lizards  who  responded  took  to  the 
dry  land,  some,  later,  to  the  air,  and  be- 
came the  parents  of  the  mammal  and  the 
bird.  Each  advance  was  made  at  the  risk 
of  life,  and  was  always  a  great  adventure, 
a  great  achievement.  The  first  mother  who 
went  hungry  to  linger  over  the  care  of  her 
child  a  day  longer  than  necessary  had 
answered  the  same  advertisement ;  and  the 
first  ape  who  risked  his  standing  in  his 
tribe  for  a  new  idea  became  the  father  of 
men.1  Nature  is  still  hanging  out  a 
placard  with  the  old  advertisement — 
"Who  will  make  the  new  adventure?  who 
will  risk  all  for  an  idea?"  When  people 
venture  their  all  for  a  new  ideal,  the  result 
is  the  development  of  new  powers. 

We  have  much  to  do  if  the  use  of  force 
upon  human  beings  is  to  be  pushed 
steadily  backward  until  it  is  only  required 
for  the  temporary  restraint  of  the  maniac ; 
and  if  such  diplomacy  as  may  be  described 
as  the  art  of  getting  the  better  of  your 

1  In  discussing  man's  relation  to  allied  vertebrates  and 
mammalia,  Professors  J.  A.  Thomson  and  P.  Geddes, 
Evolution  (Home  University  Library),  p.  99,  remark, 
"The  real  distinctiveness  of  man  from  his  nearest  allies 
depends  on  his  power  of  building  up  general  ideas,  and  of 
controlling  his  conduct  in  relation  to  ideals." 


SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     87 

neighbour  by  veiling  some  part  of  the 
truth  is  to  be  considered  a  disgraceful  ex- 
pedient, except  as  a  last  resort  in  dealing 
with  lunatics.  To  attain  such  an  end  men 
must  learn,  by  taking  the  utmost  pains 
and  by  enduring  persecution  and  mishaps 
with  the  greatest  hardihood,  to  acquire 
new  insight  into  justice,  to  see  with  an 
opponent's  eyes  as  well  as  with  their  own, 
and  to  believe  in  the  opponent's  virtues 
as  well  as  in  their  own.  It  is  necessary  to 
convince  the  leading  spirits  among  the 
youth  of  every  nation  that  the  welfare  of 
their  race  depends  upon  their  bringing 
all  their  powers  of  reason,  humour  and 
endurance  to  the  reconciliation  of  man 
with  man  and  class  with  class  and  nation 
with  nation,  and  that  the  sanctions  of  war 
and  criminal  law  are,  at  the  best,  a  tem- 
porary expedient.  It  will  require  all  the 
enthusiasm,  the  ingenuity,  the  courage 
and  endurance  of  the  young  and  the  in- 
telligent to  master  the  problem  and  be- 
come efficient  in  any  branch  of  conciliatory 
and  remedial  work.  Here  indeed  is  work 
enough,  risk  enough,  for  all  the  best  facul- 
ties of  anyone  who  would  give  his  life  for 
the  good  of  his  country  or  of  the  world. 
By  devotion  to  such  work  a  new  and 


88     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

higher  faculty  of  human  tact  would  de- 
velop. Tact  is  the  power  to  conduct  com- 
bats of  mind  with  mind  on  the  higher 
plane  of  goodwill.  Possibly  with  right 
eugenic  conditions  and  proper  environ- 
ment, in  two  or  three  generations  a  race 
might  arise  who,  while  approving  only 
right  conduct  in  their  neighbours,  and  act- 
ing with  entire  frankness  and  sincerity, 
would  yet  be  able  to  live  on  sympa- 
thetic terms  with  the  unthankful  and  the 
evil. 

If  ultimately  no  such  race  arise,  we  shall 
be  pushed  off  the  board  by  some  other  and 
different  race.  Unless  our  sun  should 
enter  the  Milky  Way  and  crash  into  some 
other  star,  astronomers  now  predict  that 
our  earth  may  turn  for  some  hundreds  of 
millions  of  years  under  its  genial  rays. 
That  would  give  plenty  of  time  for 
humanity  to  decline  and  for  some  new 
kind  of  monkey  to  develop  a  greater  social 
intelligence  than  ours.  If  we  failed,  the 
push  of  life  would  be  in  that  direction, 
for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  tendency  of 
biological  development  is  toward  the  pro- 
duction of  some  animal  who  will  perfectly 
correspond  with  the  whole  of  terrestrial 
conditions.  But  the  younger  and  more 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     89 

hopeful  among  us  will  think  twice  before 
abandoning  man's  claim  to  inherit  the 
earth. 

We  proceed  now  to  consider  the  falsity 
involved  in  the  sentimental  cry  that  man 
has  always  been  a  fighting  animal  and 
must  always  fight.1  The  only  reasonable 
ground  for  the  idea  that  man's  com- 
bative instinct  can  only  find  expression 
in  quarrelling  with  his  fellows  lies  in 
the  implied  assumption  that  man  cannot 
change  his  ways.  Such  an  assumption 
can  now  only  be  made  by  those  who 
think  in  terms  of  a  past  generation,  that 
supposed  human  history  to  have  begun 
only  four  thousand  years  before  Christ 
and  to  be  nearing  its  end  in  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

Since  the  Eolithic  Age  is  there  any  can  the 
department  of  life  in  which  man  has  not 
changed  his  habits?    Men  did  not,  in  the  Spots? 
beginning,   wear   clothes,   yet   the   habit 
of  wearing  clothes  is  now  tolerably  well 
established.       Again,     man's      anatomy 
proves  that  he  was  originally  a  vegetarian 
like  the  apes;  yet  he  became  a  parasite 
upon  his  herds,  first  drinking  their  milk 
and  then  eating  their  superfluous  young; 

1  See  page  84. 


90     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

in  fact,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  he  has 
become  carnivorous;  and  if  we  reflect  on 
the  apparent  impossibility  of  the  horse, 
the  cow  or  the  monkey  eating  flesh, 
we  may  realise  what  an  extraordinary 
power  man  has  of  changing  his  habits. 
Again,  there  was  a  time  when  man  was 
a  migratory  creature,  changing  his  abode 
with  the  seasons,  acquiring  no  property 
or  sitting  lightly  to  his  booths  and  crude 
plantings.  Or,  again,  there  was  a  time 
when  the  idea  of  each  man  or  woman 
having  only  one  mate  seems  scarcely  to 
have  been  conceived;  whereas  now  it  has 
become  quite  a  prevailing  habit.  And 
these  changes  have  involved  the  regula- 
tion and  training  of  instincts  quite  as 
fundamental  as  that  of  combat. 

What  are  we  to  think  about  the  Palaeo- 
lithic men  who  developed  the  high  art  of 
painting  animals  and  of  carving  in  stone 
and  ivory?  Where  did  their  civilisation 
disappear  to,  with  all  that  their  art 
implies?  The  men  who  occupied  their 
place  in  the  Neolithic  ages  knew  nothing 
of  art;  their  attempts  at  it  were  of  the 
crudest.  Here  was  change,  but  this  time 
for  the  worse,  and  that  may  happen  again. 
And  these  Neolithic  men,  whose  blood 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     91 

may  still  persist  in  our  veins,  what  of  their 
habits? 

We  know  that  between  the  time  when 
human  beings  first  began  to  use  iron  in- 
struments and  to  make  pottery,  and  the 
time,  let  us  say,  of  written  history,  they 
had  in  many  ways  completely  changed 
their  social  habits.  It  is  mere  ignorance 
of  the  dawn  of  history,  of  folk-lore,  and 
even  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  makes 
any  one  say  that  "history  repeats  itself," 
or  that  man  cannot  change. 

And  in  historic  times  we  can  see  that, 
although  changes  sometimes  come  so 
slowly  as  to  be  scarcely  perceptible  in  the 
course  of  ages,  they  sometimes  proceed 
with  great  rapidity.  There  is  the  case  of 
modern  Japan;  while  in  China  and  India 
we  find  ideas  and  customs  clearly  de- 
scribed in  literature  dating  before  the 
Christian  era,  and  that  have  remained 
unchanged  until  some  twenty  years 
ago,  are  now  in  some  parts  rapidly  disap- 
pearing. Or,  again,  examine  the  case  of 
the  Negro  transplanted  from  savagery 
into  Christian  civilisation.  I  have  seen, 
in  the  mountains  of  North  Carolina, 
small  holders  of  pure  African  breed  living 
in  all  respects  in  a  more  refined  and 


92     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

intellectual  way  than  the  poor  whites 
beside  them.  We  have  changed  our 
habits  before,  for  better  or  worse,  and 
shall  again. 

At  this  hour — whether  we  consider  the 
peace  settlement  satisfactory  or  not — the 
most  enthusiastic  militarist  may  well 
stand  appalled  at  the  havoc  of  war.  The 
following  is  a  conservative  estimate  of 
loss,  given  by  one  of  our  most  reliable 
newspapers,  and  based  only  on  the  death 
returns  admitted  by  the  various  armies: — 

"The  total  losses  of  the  Powers  opposed 
to  Germany  and  Austria  during  the  whole 
or  part  of  the  war  were  about  5,500,000, 
excluding  the  very  large  number  of  deaths 
of  French  civilians,  of  which  we  have  no 
trustworthy  estimate  at  hand. 

"On  the  other  side,  Germany  has  re- 
ported 1,611,104  dead;  Bulgaria  has 
201,224;  and  those  of  Austria-Hungary 
and  of  Turkey  respectively  are  cautiously 
estimated  at  800,000  and  300,000,  giving 
a  total  of  a  little  over  2,900,000.  Added 
to  the  Allies'  total  this  gives  some  8,400,- 
000.  The  American  Committee  for 
Armenian  and  Syrian  Relief  estimates  at 
4,000,000  the  number  of  Armenians, 
Syrians,  Jews,  and  Greeks  massacred  by 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     93 

the  Turks  during  the  war,  and  it  is  be- 
lieved that  over  1,000,000  Serbian  civilians 
died  through  massacre,  hunger,  or  disease 
caused  by  the  war.  Medical  experts  have 
more  roughly  estimated  at  4,000,000  the 
additional  mortality  from  influenza  and 
pneumonia  attributable  to  war  conditions. 
With  the  addition  of  some  7500  neutrals 
(mostly  Norwegians)  killed  by  German 
submarines,  the  grand  total  approaches 
seventeen  millions  and  a  half.  But  of 
course  it  is  impossible  to  calculate  the 
enormous  number  of  other  deaths  to  which 
the  war  has  contributed."1 

And  for  each  one  slain  we  may  surely 
count  another  who  lives  on  hopelessly 
maimed  or  wrecked. 

Since  these  facts  were  published  the 
medical  estimate  of  human  losses  by 
influenza  has  arisen  to  more  than  twice 
4,000,000.  This  pestilence  is  but  one  of 
the  diseases  that  are  the  camp  followers 
of  war;  but  it  is  the  most  notable,  not 
only  for  the  tale  of  its  victims,  but  because 
it  seems  to  reflect  the  very  temper  of  the 
God  of  War  in  choosing  for  destruction 
the  young  and  the  strong,  who  ought  to 
be  the  parents  of  the  coming  age.  If  the 

1  Manchester  Guardian,  February  27,  1919. 


94     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

human  race  is  to  survive  we  must  some- 
what change  our  habits. 

Shall  Man  All  the  facts  of  biological  evolution 
Become  Be-  deny  that  history  repeats  itself,  or  that 
generate?  the  future  shall  be  like  the  past.  The  ages 
of  the  process  of  development  are  many 
and  long,  but  nothing  remains  the  same, 
not  even  the  hills  that  we  call  eternal. 
Since  the  time  when  man  was  merely  a 
pack  animal  he  has  developed  individual 
self -consciousness,  which  has  brought  the 
need  for  more  frequent  adjustments  of 
social  life.  The  change  going  on  in  hu- 
manity, as  in  everything  else,  must  be 
either  toward  social  development  or  social 
degeneration. 

The  Victorians,  by  the  mouth  of  Tenny- 
son, asked  a  pertinent  question: 

A  monstrous  eft  was  of  old  the  Lord  and  Master  of 
Earth, 

For  him  did  his  high  sun  flame,  and  his  river  billowing 
ran, 

And  he  felt  himself  in  his  force  to  be  Nature's  crown- 
ing race. 

As  nine  months  go  to  the  shaping  an  infant  ripe  for 
his  birth, 

So  many  a  million  of  ages  have  gone  to  the  making  of 
man: 

He  now  is  first,  but  is  he  the  last  ?  is  he  not  too 
base?1 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     95 

The  more  recent  Georgians  put  the 
same  misgiving  in  another  way : 

"The  plasticity  of  the  organic  type  is 
the  one  thing  which  gives  us  hope  for  the 
future.  Was  there  not  some  prophetic 
significance  of  this  kind  in  the  words 
spoken  by  Ophelia  in  her  madness:  'They 
say  the  owl  was  a  baker's  daughter.  Lord! 
we  know  what  we  are,  but  we  know  not 
what  we  may  be'? 

"But  Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day,  and 
the  change  which  can  be  effected  in  a 
single  generation  will  be  infinitesimally 
small.  And  though  we  cannot  hold  the 
extreme  form  of  belief  in  this  plasticity 
which  was  entertained  by  Ophelia,  who 
quotes  without  comment  but,  as  the  con- 
text shows,  with  approval  the  statement 
that  the  owl  was  a  baker's  daughter,  we 
may  effect  some  alleviation  in  the  suffer- 
ing caused  by  the  knowledge  of  what  we 
are  from  the  fact,  now  established,  that  we 
know  not  what  we  may  be."1 

What  has  all  this  to  do  with   Chris-  TheOther 
tianity?     Nothing  at   all,   many  people 
would  say;  for  Christianity,  they  hold,  is  tianity. 
a  system  of  religion  designed  solely  to 

1  An  Introduction  to  a  Biology,  by  A.  D.  Darbishire, 
pp.  112-113. 


96     SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

educate  the  human  spirit  to  correspond- 
ence with  a  spiritual  world  quite  different 
from  this  earth,  and  failure  to  desire  and 
correspond  with  this  present  material  life 
is  the  best  preparation  for  the  Christian 
heaven.  They  tell  us  that  many  of  the 
greatest  Christian  saints  have  exemplified 
their  entire  incapacity  to  correspond  to 
the  things  of  earth,  and  that  their  Divine 
Master  was  in  this  respect  their  prototype, 
that  the  most  characteristic  of  His  sayings 
exhort  His  followers  to  the  renunciation 
of  all  earthly  ambitions  and  cares,  and 
demand  that  they  should  follow  Him  in 
disregarding  the  things  of  earth  in  order 
to  attain  an  immortal  heaven. 

Now,  of  course,  the  religion  Christ 
taught  is  centred  in  the  unseen  in  two 
ways.  First,  the  life  of  the  individual  is 
conceived  as  only  having  its  beginning  in 
the  animal  body  of  sense,  and  to  the  indi- 
vidual a  future  is  offered  that  will  redress 
the  injustice  of  the  present;  and,  secondly, 
the  life  of  the  individual  is  conceived  as 
sustained  here  and  now  by  the  strength 
of  God,  and  enlightened  by  the  vision  of 
God.  But  to  suppose  that  the  duty  and 
privilege  of  the  individual  is  not  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  welfare  of  the  future  race 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     97 

on  earth  is,  I  venture  to  believe,  a  mis- 
taken interpretation  of  Christ's  teaching. 

My  reason  for  thinking  so  is  twofold.  First 
In  the  first  place,  man's  advent  involved  totheTra- 


the  success  of  the  adventurers  among  the 
protozoa,  among  the  lizards,  among  the 
early  mammals,  among  the  monkeys.  If, 
then,  God  made  man  in  order  that  his 
eternal  good  should  involve  failure  to 
correspond  with  his  terrestrial  environ- 
ment, it  is  certainly  odd  that  His  way  of 
making  this  animal  —  whose  glory  was  to 
be  his  failure  —  was  the  evolutionary 
method,  which  involves  a  series  of  pre- 
paratory terrestrial  successes  extending 
over  some  hundred  million  years.  If  we 
bring  God  into  the  matter  at  all  —  as  the 
Christian  is  bound  to  do  —  it  certainly 
looks  as  if  the  push  of  life  toward  the 
terrestrial  masterpiece  must  be  some  mani- 
festation of  God's  mind.  Secondly,  a  Second 
closer  study  of  the  Gospel  records  sug-  ObJection- 
gests  that  the  "world"  which  the  Christian 
is  urged  to  give  up  is  not  the  terrestrial 
environment  of  the  Christian  Society. 
Such  phrases  as  declare  that  God's  King- 
dom ought  to  come  and  His  will  be  done 
on  earth,  or  that  Christ  must  return  to 
earth  to  reign,  may  indeed  admit  of 


98     SUKVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

diverse  interpretation;  one  thing  they 
cannot  mean — whether  they  be  taken 
literally  or  as  poetic  allegories — they  can- 
not mean  that  the  Christian  Society  ought 
to  fail  from  off  the  earth  in  order  that 
some  fitter  community  may  survive. 

.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  regard  Chris- 

Principle  of     .      .  ,,  ,  i  T    •  » 

Adventure,    tiamty  as  par  excellence  the  religion  of 

adventure  for  social  ends,  we  see  through 
the  whole  course  of  evolution  that  the 
mainspring  of  progress  is  the  principle  of 
hazardous  adventure  for  racial  ends.1 
This  was  dimly  manifested  in  the  earlier, 
more  clearly  in  the  later,  stages,  but  first 
made  completely  explicit  in  the  life  of 
Christ. 

Many  of  the  more  recent  works  on 
biology  dwell  upon  the  element  of  adven- 
ture, even  within  the  sphere  of  subcon- 
scious life,  at  the  turning  of  the  ways  in 
biological  destiny. 

1The  scientific  acknowledgment  of  the  disinterested 
element  in  evolution  is  seen  in  the  following  passage: 
"That  increase  of  parental  care,  that  frequent  appearance 
of  sociability  and  co-operation,  need  far  other  prominence 
than  they  can  possibly  receive  even  by  some  mildewing 
attenuation  of  the  classic  economic  hypothesis  of  the 
progress  of  the  species  essentially  through  the  internecine 
struggle  among  its  individuals." — Thomson  and  Geddes, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  246-247. 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST     99 

"Far  and  away  the  most  interesting 
question  which  can  confront  the  student 
of  life  (is)  whether  evolution  is  a  process 
of  which  a  simple  mechanistic  explanation 
has  been  discovered,  or  whether  it  is  not  a 
mysterious  process  which  we  are  scarcely 
able  to  understand  at  all  yet,  but  which 
may,  perhaps,  be  due  to  deliberate  striv- 
ing (the  italics  are  mine)  on  the  part  of 
the  animals  and  plants  which  have  taken 
part  and  are  taking  part  in  it.  And  many 
will  lean  to  the  latter  interpretation,  be- 
cause they  find  it  inconceivable  that  we 
should  know  as  much  about  so  vast  and 
complex  and  close  a  thing  as  evolution 
as  we  should  do  if  the  mechanistic  ex- 
planation of  it  by  natural  selection  were 
true."1 

Professor  Bateson,  a  leading  exponent 
of  the  Mendelian  School,  remarks:  "The 
conception  of  evolution  as  proceeding 
through  the  gradual  transformation  of 
masses  of  individuals  by  the  accumulation 
of  impalpable  changes  is  one  that  the 
study  of  genetics  shows  immediately  to 
be  false.  .  .  .  For  the  facts  of  heredity 
and  variation  unite  to  prove  that  genetic 
variation  is  a  phenomenon  of  individuals. 

1Darbishire,  op.  cit.,  p.  113. 


100   SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

Each  new  character  is  formed  in  some 
germ-cell  of  some  particular  individual, 
at  some  point  of  time."  * 

At  any  rate,  whatever  may  be  the 
explanation  in  these  early  stages,  later 
evolutionary  changes  have  always  come 
about  through  conscious  adventure,  when 
the  adventurer  is  called  upon  to  give  up 
the  familiar  "world,"  i.e.  to  set  forth  upon 
some  unknown  path — and  that  always 
at  the  risk  of  loss;  for  where  the  herd 
or  flock  or  pack  or  tribe  is  concerned, 
the  adventurer  runs  the  risk  of  being 
done  to  death  by  his  fellows  before  he 
can  suffer  much  of  the  loneliness  and 
difficulty  which,  if  he  survive,  he  is  cer- 
tain to  incur. 

"It  is  certain  that  man  did  not  arise 
from  any  of  the  known  anthropoid  apes 
(gorilla,  chimpanzee,  orang  and  gibbon), 
but  from  a  stock  common  to  them  and  to 
him;  therefore  it  is  likely  that  the  human 
stock  had  diverged  before  the  time  when 
the  anthropoid  apes  are  known  to  have 
been  established  as  a  distinct  family, 
namely,  in  the  Miocene.  It  is  possible 
that  a  man  arose  as  a  mutation,  as  an 
anthropoid  genius  in  short,  but  the  fac- 

1  MendeV  s  Principles  of  Heredity,  W.  Bateson,  p.  289. 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST   101 

tors  that  led  to  his  emergence  are  all 
unknown."  l 

Well,  suppose  an  anthropoid  ape  genius 
was  the  first  man.  Is  it  not  likely  that 
he  was  stoned  to  death  by  his  tribe  for 
violating  some  of  their  taboo?  That  is 
the  way  apes  treat  a  freak.  We  may 
imagine  that  his  daughter,  finding  herself 
an  outcast,  cradled  her  baby,  who  so  far 
had  hung  round  her  neck,  and  built  a  little 
shelter  to  keep  off  missiles.  Inheriting  her 
father's  genius,  she  would  be  bound  to  run 
the  gauntlet,  and  if  she  survived  she  might 
thus  launch  the  human  race.  Social  habit 
or  custom  is  the  law  because  it  is  the  only 
security  of  the  animal  herd  and  the  human 
tribe;  but  without  deviation  from  it  there 
can  be  no  progress ;  though,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  such  deviation  were  not  punished 
there  would  be  no  safety.  Between  this 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  the  human  race  has 
had  to  steer  its  way. 

"We  are  apt  to  think  of  the  savage  as  "The 
a  freakish  creature,  all  moods — at  one 
moment  a  friend,  at  the  next  moment  a 
fiend.  So  he  might  be,  if  it  were  not  for 
the  social  drill  imposed  by  his  customs. 
So  he  is,  if  you  destroy  his  customs,  and 

1  Thomson  and  Geddes,   op.  tit.,  p.  101, 


102   SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

expect  him  nevertheless  to  behave  as  an 
educated  and  reasonable  being.  Given, 
then,  a  primitive  society  in  a  healthy  and 
uncontaminated  condition,  its  members 
will  invariably  be  found  to  be  on  the 
average  more  law-abiding,  as  judged  from 
the  standpoint  of  their  own  law,  than  is 
the  case  in  any  civilised  state.  .  .  .  Mean- 
ingless injunctions  abound,  since  the  value 
of  a  traditional  practice  does  not  depend 
on  its  consequences,  but  simply  on  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  practice.  .  .  .  How  to 
break  through  the  'cake 'of  custom/  as 
Bagehot  called  it,  is  the  hardest  lesson 
that  humanity  has  ever  had  to  learn.  .  .  . 
To  break  through  custom  by  the  sheer 
force  of  reflection,  and  so  to  make  rational 
progress  possible,  was  the  intellectual  feat 
of  one  people,  the  ancient  Greeks ;  and  it 
is  at  least  highly  doubtful  if,  without  their 
leadership,  a  progressive  civilisation  would 
have  existed  to-day.  .  .  .  Just  as  a  boy 
at  school  who  happens  to  offend  against 
the  unwritten  code  has  his  life  made  a 
burden  by  the  rest  of  his  mates,  so  in  the 
primitive  community  the  fear  of  a  rough 
handling  causes  'I  must  not'  to  wait 
upon  'I  dare  not.'  One  has  only  to  read 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang's  instructive  story  of 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST   103 

the  fate  of  'Why  Why,  the  first  Radical,' 
to  realise  how  among  savages — and  is  it 
so  very  different  among  ourselves? — it 
pays  much  better  to  be  respectable  than 
to  play  the  moral  hero." 

Every  fresh  stage  in  human  evolution  The 
has  come  through  the  genius  who  sees  that 
it  is  necessary  to  break  through  the  "cake  Prophet, 
of  custom,"  and  the  hero  who  responds  to 
the  call.  We  have  various  words  to  denote 
such  seers ;  we  call  them  discoverers,  phil- 
osophers, or  prophets.  A  prophet  is  one 
who  sees  into  the  inner  truth  of  things, 
sees  what  is  necessary  and  eternal  in  con- 
trast to  what  is  provisional  and  passing, 
with  which  other  men  are  absorbed.  If 
the  race  to  which  the  prophet  belongs 
listen  to  his  word,  the  future  accords  with 
his  vision  and  he  is  said  to  have  foreseen; 
but  if  his  fellows  do  not  attend  to  him  the 
future  does  not  accord  with  his  vision. 
Insight,  not  foresight,  is  his  characteristic. 

At  every  stage  of  man's  evolution  his  The 
progress   has  depended   upon   men   who  oMfce  ? 
would  walk  by  insight  or  faith  in  an  idea  Persecuted, 
rather  than  by  what  was  obvious  in  their 
environment.   Such  men  were  persecuted, 

1  Anthropology     (Home    University    Library),    R.    R. 
Marett,  pp.  183-187. 


104   SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

but,  bringing  salvation  to  their  race,  they 
might  well  rejoice.  They  might  well  say 
of  their  fellows,  all  following  one  another 
and  approving  one  another,  "Woe  unto 
you  when  all  men  speak  well  of  you."  In 
an  evolutionary  sense  these  things  have 
been  true  in  every  crisis,  small  or  great,  of 
our  racial  history. 

Hence  it  follows  that  whoever  would  be 
the  apostle  of  an  essential  idea  which  the 
world  around  him  has  not  yet  assimilated, 
must,  if  that  idea  is  to  generate  new  cus- 
toms, be  first  and  foremost  an  adventurer, 
a  crusader.  He  must  always  be  willing, 
nay,  eager,  to  break  with  the  traditional 
world  around  him,  to  "hate"  his  kindred 
who  have  no  ideas  but  those  common  to 
that  world  in  comparison  with  the  love 
he  has  for  the  new  idea,  the  new  custom, 
or  the  great  personality  that  embodies 
these.  He  can  only  do  this  at  the  risk 
of  all  that  he  has  formerly  held  dear,  and 
at  many  times  and  places  at  the  risk  of 
life  itself.  In  a  word,  he  must  know  the 
meaning  of  Christ's  injunction,  "Follow 
me."  And  in  so  far  as  Christ's  teaching 
is  "other-worldly,"  in  so  far  as  He  re- 
affirms the  most  ancient  of  human  beliefs, 
that  life  does  not  end  with  the  dissolution 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST   105 

of  the  body,  He  does  so  whilst  declaring 
that  it  is  not  the  respecter  of  the  taboo  or 
the  conventionally  moral  person,  but  the 
adventurer,  "he  that  will  lose  his  life," 
who  will  gain  the  next  life.  If  so,  we  may 
divine  that  the  next  life  will  be  a  life  of 
further  adventure  in  which  the  conven- 
tional would  not  feel  much  at  home ;  per- 
haps also  that  the  adventurer  will  con- 
tinue to  be  cognisant  of  the  beneficent 
earthly  results  of  his  adventure.  In  fact, 
Jesus  Christ  affirms  that  even  on  selfish 
grounds  the  pioneer  of  a  better  day  may 
rejoice  even  though  he  be  miserably  done 
to  death  in  this  world,  and  not  even  canon- 
ised afterward. 

We  come  to  another  point  of  connection  The  In- 
between  Christianity  and  man's  fitness  for  Of  the™* 
survival.  We  have  seen  that  when  human  Friendly, 
evolution  had  reached  the  stage  at  which 
man  had  so  far  developed  individual  self- 
consciousness  and  reason  as  to  be  able  to 
direct    his    natural   instincts    into    social 
rather  than  anti-social  channels,  his  fur- 
ther advance  depended  upon  his  power  of 
friendship,  that  just  in  so  far  as  his  ca- 
pacity for  reasonable  friendship  exceeded 
his    quarrelsome    tendencies,    he    corre- 
sponded with  his  terrestrial  environment, 


106   SUKVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST 

and  just  in  so  far  as  he  remained  quarrel- 
some he  has  failed  so  to  correspond;  and 
we  have  come  to  a  crisis  in  the  world's 
history  when  his  failure  is  perhaps  almost 
more  apparent  than  his  success,  and  many 
are  questioning  whether  he  is  going  back- 
wards or  forwards,  whether  degeneracy 
or  a  new  impulse  of  life  is  going  to  set  in. 
Do  we  not  find  that  Christianity  and 
Evolution  teach  the  self -same  lesson  as  to 
what  must  be  the  way  of  progress  for 
humanity? 

Christ  taught  that  a  time  would  come 
when  man  should  live  in  a  blessed  con- 
dition of  perfect  correspondence  with  his 
environment — that  is,  not  only  with  God 
the  Creator  of  all,  but  with  men  and  with 
all  the  conditions  of  life.  This  state  of 
things  He  expressed  in  the  phrase  "the 
kingdom  of  heaven,"  "the  kingdom  of 
God."  Now,  the  type  of  man  that  should 
thus  make  a  success  of  life  is  described  in 
various  ways.  He  is  to  be  complete  in 
goodness  as  God  is  complete,  i.e.  he  is 
not  only  to  be  negatively  inoffensive,  but 
positively  and  triumphantly  generous  to 
the  unthankful  and  the  evil,  to  those  who 
do  right  and  to  those  who  do  wrong.  He 
is  to  love,  not  only  his  friends  but  his 


SUEVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST   107 

enemies.  He  is  to  endeavour  to  under- 
stand rather  than  to  condemn,  by  clear- 
ing away  from  his  own  vision  all  that 
impedes  it. 

In  fact,  if  we  want  to  find  out  what  is 
the  relation  between  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
and  man's  correspondence  with  his  en- 
vironment we  had  better  discover  what 
the  word  npdog  means.  We  shall  find  that 
it  does  not  mean  poor-spirited.  The 
7rpa6f  etyi  of  Matt.  xi.  29  is  spoken  by 
Jesus  the  lion-hearted,  who  stood  alone 
against  the  whole  world.  Of  the  poor  in 
spirit  Jesus  had  something  else  to  say; 
but  of  those  who  triumph  by  the  dignity 
of  gentleness  He  said,  (idKapioi  ol  -xpaelg— 
"Blessed  are  those  who  proceed  with  sweet 
reasonableness,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth." 


IV 
POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

BY  LILY  DOUGALL 

Force  THERE  are  few  words  the  significance  of 

Direction,  which  is  more  vaguely  conceived  than  the 
word  "power."  There  is  physical  force 
directed  to  no  definite  end  or  purpose — 
the  power  of  the  storm  or  the  earthquake. 
There  is  physical  force  harnessed  to  some 
useful  end — as  when  we  speak  of  horse 
power  and  water  power.  Wild  horses 
course  the  plains;  the  waves  of  the  sea 
swell  and  break ;  electricity  flows  over  the 
earth's  surface  and  visibly  cracks  and 
sparkles  in  the  clouds;  but  we  only  call 
these  power  when  they  can  be  used  as  the 
tools  of  purpose.  So,  too,  with  persons. 
A  strong  man  had  an  invalid  wife ;  he  was 
able  to  lift  and  carry  her,  and  people 
spoke  of  his  physical  power.  All  the 
neighbours  knew,  however,  that  she,  being 
a  fretful  woman,  could  make  him  do  just 
what  she  liked.  One  of  them,  who  had 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  109 

just  referred  to  him  as  a  "powerful  man," 
remarked,  with  unconscious  repetition  of 
the  word,  "She  is  the  power  in  that  house." 
The  essence  of  power  is  thus  seen  to  lie 
less  in  force  than  in  direction  of  force. 

We  may  often  see  two  children  trying  Lower  Con- 
to  play  together  with  toy  bricks.  The 
elder,  having  reached  the  constructive  age, 
is  endeavouring  to  build  a  castle,  church 
or  tower.  The  younger  only  desires  to 
see  the  erection  big  enough  for  him  to 
knock  down  with  a  clatter.  Here  we  get 
two  sorts  of  power  pitted  one  against  the 
other — construction  against  destruction. 
The  elder  child  is  quite  strong  enough  to 
injure  the  little  one  in  such  a  way  as  to 
prevent  his  constant  mischievous  onset; 
but,  being  civilised  by  more  years  in  the 
nursery,  he  controls  his  temper  and  perse- 
veringly  circumvents  the  mischief-maker. 
If  we  were  asked  which  child  showed  the 
greater  power,  we  should  say  that  the 
power  of  mischievous  destruction  was 
negligible  compared  with  the  power  shown 
in  the  ability  to  construct  and  in  self- 
control.  In  the  household  nursery  no  one 
would  question  this  judgment.  We  are 
not  as  ready,  however,  to  say  in  the  larger 
nursery  of  souls  which  we  call  the  world 


110  PC  WEE— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 


Omnipo- 
tence and 
Choice  of 
Means. 


that  the  ability  to  construct  is  power  in 
comparison  with  which  the  ability  to  de- 
stroy is  negligible;  or  that  the  ability  to 
bear  with  a  mischief-maker  and  circum- 
vent him  is  power  compared  to  which  the 
ability  to  injure  him  is  not  worth  calling 
power.  At  the  root  of  our  respect  for 
injurious  and  destructive  power  in  the 
world  is  the  time-honoured  belief  that 
God  wields  such  power.  Yet  it  is  possible 
that  by  further  investigation  we  may 
come  to  question  this  belief. 

What  is  involved  in  saying  of  any 
person  that,  in  his  sphere  of  life,  he  has 
supreme  power?  Our  ideas  are  not  clear. 
A  factory  manager  may  be  able  to  use 
horse  power  or  steam  power  or  electricity 
to  run  his  machines,  but  he  must  choose 
between  them;  whichever  he  instals  pre- 
vents the  use  of  the  others  on  the  same 
machines.  Clearly  supreme  power,  or 
omnipotence,  in  the  factory  does  not 
mean  the  power  to  use  them  all. 

What  would  supreme  power  mean  in 
the  elder  of  the  two  children  trying  to 
play  with  the  toy  bricks?  The  baby 
knocks  down  his  brother's  tower  before 
it  is  half  finished.  The  elder  has  the 
power  to  construct  his  tower  and  to  knock 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  111 

down  his  little  brother ;  but  the  thing  that 
he  set  out  to  do  was  to  build  the  tower 
with  the  little  one's  help,  to  show  the  little 
one  how  to  build.  His  real  purpose  being 
to  play  with  his  brother,  he  cannot  accom- 
plish this  by  the  use  of  physical  strength. 
He  is  obliged  to  apply  the  constructive 
ability  with  which  he  is  manipulating  the 
bricks  to  the  little  one's  character,  and 
contrive  by  peaceable  methods  to  make 
him  desire  to  see  the  tower  properly  built. 
He  cannot  both  coerce  the  little  one 
physically  and  also  have  a  happy  hour 
with  him.  He  must  choose  between  the 
exercise  of  one  form  of  power  and  the 
other.  And  if  he  is  looking  to  the  future 
he  must  choose  peaceable  methods  if  he  is 
to  have  any  enjoyment  in  nursery  com- 
panionship. The  ordinary  child  will,  of 
course,  choose  neither  one  course  nor  the 
other,  but  vary  between  the  two,  some- 
times trying  physical  coercion,  sometimes 
amiable  management.  But  we  all  recog- 
nise that  the  more  intelligent  the  bigger 
child  is,  the  less  he  will  knock  about  his 
little  brother. 

Let  us  revert  to  the  case  of  the  man 
with  the  invalid  wife.  For  this  man  to 
be  omnipotent  in  his  household  he  must 


112  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

be  able,  not  only  to  carry  his  wife  as  he 
choose,  but  to  direct  her  thoughts  and  her 
will  instead  of  being  directed  by  her  sick 
fancies.  Let  us  suppose  this  the  fact,  and 
the  man's  will  dominant.  If  she  remained 
miserably  ailing  he  would  require  the 
power  to  heal  and  strengthen  her.  But  if 
he  succeeded  in  getting  her  on  her  feet  he 
obviously  could  not  both  use  his  power  iio 
carry  her  about  and  at  the  same  time  use 
his  power  in  getting  her  to  walk  of  herself. 
The  physical  power  he  had  exercised 
would  fall  into  disuse  because  incom- 
patible with  the  power  to  teach  her  to 
walk  unsupported.  He  could  not  both 
habitually  pick  up  the  woman  and  carry 
her  to  the  shade  of  an  apple  tree,  and  also 
exercise  his  higher  power  to  enable  and 
incite  her  to  take  herself  there.  He  must 
habitually  cease  to  do  the  one  thing  before 
he  can  habitually  succeed  in  doing  the 
other.  This  is  evident. 

Further,  if  he  wanted  a  friend  and  a 
helpful  companion  in  his  wife,  she  must 
cease  to  be  the  mere  mental  automaton 
controlled  by  his  ideas  and  wishes.  If 
he  were  a  normal  man  he  would  want  her 
to  bring  her  own  contribution  of  ideas 
and  purposes  to  enrich  their  common  life. 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  113 

But  if  he  desired  that,  he  would  need  to 
cease  his  mental  control  over  her  thought 
and  will.  He  could  not  both  cause  her  to 
go  from  the  house  to  the  shade  of  the  apple 
tree  and  also  cause  her  to  choose  what  she 
will  do — whether  remain  in  the  house  or 
sit  under  that  or  some  other  tree.  He 
cannot  both  control  her  mental  life  and 
have  an  intelligent  and  responsive  com- 
panion. His  power  to  control  her  mind 
must  fall  into  disuse  if  his  power  to  evoke 
a  responsive  friendship  in  her  is  to  be 
exercised.  The  power  to  do  the  thing 
he  most  wants  to  do,  and  the  thing  best 
worth  doing,  requires  for  its  exercise  the 
abrogation,  not  only  of  physical  force,  but 
of  any  form  of  mental  influence  which 
even  approximates  to  compulsion. 

In  the  light  of  this  conception  of  the 
highest  kind  of  power,  let  us  review  the 
religious  hypothesis  of  the  Divine  govern- 
ment of  the  Universe,  and  in  particular 
the  belief  that  the  material  and  spiritual 
environment  in  which  humanity  developed 
was  the  expression  of  the  power  of  a 
beneficent  Creator.  In  so  doing  we  must 
realise  that  God  cannot  use  incompatible 
powers  to  attain  an  end.  We  must  set 
before  us  all  the  facts  of  development  as 


114  rOWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

we  know  them,  and  then  ask  ourselves  to 
what  sort  of  spiritual  power  they  bear 
witness. 

The  The  historic  teacher  of  mankind  has 

Sanction  of  i  .  .  i  •  i   , 

Conse-          been  experience — experience  which  teaches 

quence.  what  are  the  consequences,  good  or  evil, 
which  follow  from  certain  acts.  When  we 
think  of  human  life  in  its  first  beginnings, 
when  the  mother  carried  about  her  babe — 
as  do  the  apes  still — clinging  round  her 
neck  till  a  year  old,  when  clothes  and  huts 
were  not  yet  invented,  the  sanction  for 
any  action  evidently  was  the  advantage 
to  be  gained  or  the  disadvantage  to  be 
avoided  by  doing  it.  He  or  she  who  could 
best  foresee  the  results  of  any  action  and 
act  accordingly,  would  thrive.  The  dog 
who  picks  quarrels  with  dogs  he  cannot 
master  is  soon  finished  in  the  fight,  or  if 
he  rashly  wriggle  too  far  into  a  fox-hole 
he  is  entombed,  or  if  he  try  to  swim  too 
swift  a  river  he  is  drowned.  It  is  thus 
by  the  sanction  of  consequences  that  dogs 
have  learned  to  be  wary  of  catastrophe. 
In  their  case  we  do  not  enquire  whether 
such  catastrophe  be  the  punishment  of  a 
moral  governor;  the  system  of  calculable 
results  is  the  government  under  which 
they  live.  In  the  same  way  man,  at  his 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  115 

first  emergence  must,  we  should  all  admit, 
have  been  educated  by  natural  conse- 
quence. Every  other  form  of  education 
is  more  rapid,  though  less  effective,  than 
the  education  of  experience;  but  possibly 
man  had  time  to  learn  by  the  education  of 
experience,  for  geologists  tell  us  that  it 
may  be  some  250,000  years  since  man 
began  to  use  stone  implements.  We  may 
well  believe  that  the  Divine  Mind  con- 
trived the  school  of  experience,  and  that 
the  Divine  Spirit  quickened  man's  mental 
powers  in  that  school  to  discover  the  good 
and  to  avoid  the  bad;  but  his  discoveries 
were  made,  as  far  as  we  know,  by  observa- 
tion and  trial. 

And  the  human  mind,  groping  for  an  Historical 
interpretation  of  its  material  and  spiritual  J|J)^^ie 
environment,  made  childish  guesses  at  the  Power: 
truth.  Everywhere  we  find  primitive  man 
firmly   believing   in   unseen   deities   who 
demand  that  he  shall  do  things  on  other 
than  experimental  grounds.    Everywhere 
we  find  man  living  under  the  supposed 
sanctions  of  Divine  rewards  and  punish- 
ments other  than  those  of  natural  conse-  (a)  The 
quence.     He  thought  of  God's  power  as 
chiefly  shown  in  arbitrary  punishments. 
In  every  primitive  religion  man  attributed 


116  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

his  customs  or  morals  (mores)  to  revela- 
tion, and  assumed  Divine  punishments  as 
their  sanction.  Thus  Mr.  Marett  tells  us 
that  "almost  insensibly  we  are  led  on  to 
the  subject  of  religion  from  the  study  of 
the  legal  sanction;  this  very  term  'sanc- 
tion,' which  is  derived  from  Roman  law, 
pointing  in  the  same  direction,  since  it 
originally  stood  for  the  curse  which  was 
appended  in  order  to  secure  the  inviola- 
bility of  a  legal  enactment."  * 

The  schoolboy  who  remarked  that  in 
ancient  times  God  liked  a  great  deal  of 
cursing  was  unconsciously  criticising  the 
early  notion  of  revelation.  Human  im- 
agination, playing  about  the  unseen  and 
unknown,  invented  what  it  called  revela- 
tion, and  the  proof  of  this  is  the  childish 
and  often  vicious  nature  of  the  so-called 
revelation. 

"There  is  no  end  to  the  curious  and 
absurd  customs,  generally  supported  by 
supernatural  sanctions,  by  which  the  ac- 
tions of  savages  and  barbarians  are  com- 
(6)  The         monly  surrounded  and  hemmed  in.    We 
Fantastic1!1    ^ave  to  remember  that,  in  the  case  of  exist- 
ing savage  communities,  the  growth  and 
multiplication  of  customs  may  have  been 

1 R.  E.  Marett,  op.  cit.,  p.  203. 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  117 

proceeding  through  all  the  ages  during 
which  the  few  progressive  peoples  have 
been  evolving  their  civilisation.  But 
enough  is  now  known  of  the  primitive  age 
of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  to  show  that 
the  great  civilisations  of  these  States  took 
their  rise  among  peoples  bound  hand  and 
foot  by  religious  customs  and  law  as 
rigidly  as  any  savages,  and  to  show  also 
that  the  dominant  religious  emotion  was 
fear."  l 

We  are  not  on  this  account  driven  to 
deny  that  man  has  been  the  subject  of 
such  revelation  as  comes  by  the  quicken- 
ing of  his  own  judgments  of  beauty  and 
truth  and  social  value.  The  progress  that 
on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run  has  been 
made  in  these  affords  a  strong  presump- 
tion that  the  fetch  of  human  genius  is  the 
prompting  of  some  greater  Spiritual 
Reality. 

But  my  point  here  is  that  the  chief 
exercise  of  power  attributed  in  primitive 
times  to  God  was  destruction,  and  the 
chief  sentiment  attributed  to  the  Divine 
mind  was  legal  or  moral  indignation.  We 
can  easily  understand  how  this  came 
about.  Among  gregarious  animals  we 

1  Social  Psychology,  Professor  M'Dougall,  p.  308. 


118  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

know  that  if  one  animal  transgresses  the 
habits  of  the  herd,  even  when  circum- 
stances compel  it,  the  herd  will  turn  upon 
it  and  put  it  to  death.  This  action  is  part 
of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation;  for 
what  binds  the  herd  together  and  makes 
it  strong  in  the  face  of  solitary  beasts  of 
prey  is  that  all  its  members  act  together, 
in  fight  or  in  flight,  under  one  impulse. 
Humanity,  gathered  in  tribes,  had  the 
same  instinct.  It  was  entirely  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  primitive  groups, 
and  as  reason  developed  a  reasonable  ex- 
planation was  sought  and  ostensibly 
found. 

Professor  M'Dougall  thus  explains  the 
process.  Primitive  man,  like  ourselves, 
was  apt  to  let  pass  the  genial  and  regular 
processes  of  Nature  by  which  he  con- 
stantly profited,  while  disastrous  events 
struck  upon  his  nervous  system  and 
aroused  his  fear  and  indignation.  Death, 
pestilence,  famine,  storm,  flood,  required 
explanation.  Standing  out,  as  they  did 
for  him,  with  no  background  of  natural 
causes,  these  were  attributed  to  whatever 
god  or  gods  he  could  conceive.1 

1  Pace  the  earlier  archeologists,  the  normal  good  cheer 
and  happiness  of  primitive  man  appears  to  me  clearly 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  119 

"The  cause  of  every  calamity  befalling 
either  the  individual  or  the  community 
would  be  sought  in  some  offence  given  to 
the  beings  thus  vaguely  conceived;  and 
primitive  man  would  be  apt  to  regard  as 
the  source  of  offence  any  action  at  all 
unusual,  at  all  out  of  the  ordinary,  whether 
of  individuals  or  of  the  community.  Result  on 
Hence  the  conceptions  of  these  awe-  Emotion, 
inspiring  beings  would  lead  to  increased 
severity  of  social  discipline  in  two  ways: 
firstly,  by  causing  society  to  enforce  its 
customary  laws  more  rigidly;  .  .  .  sec- 
ondly, by  producing  a  very  great  increase 
in  the  number  and  kinds  of  customary 
prohibitions  and  enforced  observances. 
.  .  .  Although  many  of  the  modes  of  con- 
duct prescribed  by  primitive  and  savage 
custom  and  enforced  by  supernatural 
sanctions  are  not  such  as  we  regard  as 
moral,  .  .  .  yet  we  must  class  the  observ- 
ance of  such  custom  as  moral  conduct. 
For  the  essence  of  moral  conduct  is  the 
performance  of  the  duty  prescribed  by 
society,  as  opposed  to  the  mere  following 
of  the  promptings  of  egoistic  impulses. 

suggested  by  the  fact  that  he  was  shocked  and  impressed 
by  misfortunes,  which  must  therefore  have  been  the 
exception,  not  the  rule. 


120  POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

.  .  .  No  matter  how  grotesque  and,  from 
our  point  of  view,  how  immoral  the  pre- 
scribed codes  of  conduct  of  other  societies 
may  appear  to  be,  we  must  admit  con- 
formity to  the  code  to  be  moral  conduct; 
and  we  must  admit  that  religion  from  its 
first  crude  beginnings  was  bound  up  with 
morality."  l 

"If  my  next-door  neighbour  breaks  a 
taboo,  and  brings  down  a  visitation  on 
himself,  depend  upon  it  some  of  its  un- 
pleasant consequences  will  be  passed  on 
to  me  and  mine.  Hence,  if  some  one  has 
committed  an  act  that  is  not  merely  a 
crime  but  a  sin,  it  is  every  one's  concern 
to  wipe  out  that  sin,  which  is  usually  done 
by  wiping  out  the  sinner."2 

This  anger  on  account  of  a  breach  of 
Genesis  of  .  ,  .     _.  TTT 

Moral  in-      custom  or  law  is  moral  indignation.     We 

dignation.  ajj  remember  the  story  of  Achan  and 
the  "wedge  of  gold"  and  the  "goodly 
Babylonish  garment."  It  was  the  thought 
of  the  moral  indignation  of  Jahveh  against 
Achan's  disobedience  that  caused  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  to  slay  him.  Samuel  ex- 
pressed what  he  believed  to  be  the  moral 
indignation  of  Jahveh  against  Saul  be- 

1  Prof.  M'Dougall,  op.  cit.,  pp.  306-7,  313. 
SR.  R.  Marett,  op.  cit.,  p.  201. 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  121 

cause  he  had  not  slain  the  cattle  of  the 
Amalekites.  In  such  times  there  was  no 
distinction  drawn  between  the  impulse  of 
indignation  or  moral  anger  and  the  im- 
pulse of  retribution.  Anger  and  the  will 
to  punish  were  regarded  as  one  thing.  The 
punishment  followed  the  crime  not  as  a 
natural  consequence  but  because  it  roused 
God's  indignation.  It  was  necessary  to 
change  the  indignant  feeling  in  God's 
mind  if  the  punishment  was  to  be  stayed. 
No  doubt  many  primitive  guesses  at  the 
interpretation  of  life  were  less  melancholy. 
Prosperity  of  all  sorts  very  soon  came  to 
be  attributed  to  the  favour  of  the  unseen 
Power — just  as  disaster  was  attributed  to 
God's  anger  at  breach  of  custom  or  law, 
or,  as  we  should  say,  his  moral  anger — 
and  joy  in  this  favour  gave  rise  to  the 
gentler  religious  sentiments  of  gratitude 
and  reverence.  What  I  would  here 
emphasize  is  that  over  untold  ages  and 
over  all  parts  of  the  earth  man  has  re- 
garded Divine  power  first  and  chiefly  as 
destructive,  and  has  attributed  to  God 
such  moral  indignation  and  such  vindic- 
tive punishments  as  we,  at  our  present 
stage  of  development,  cannot  possibly  be- 
lieve to  have  been  Divine.  Let  us  also 


122  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

notice  that  whenever  moral  indignation 
Godliness  an(j  punitive  action  was  attributed  to  God, 
Cruelty.  the  members  of  the  human  group  took 
upon  themselves  to  mediate  the  Divine 
punishment  by  themselves  evincing  the 
same  moral  anger  and  by  devoting  the 
offender  or  offenders  to  death  or  outlawry, 
and  the  power  of  the  State  rested  on  the 
right  and  the  will  to  injure  the  wicked. 
Thus  we  see  that  from  untold  generations 
we  have  inherited  an  aptitude  for  moral 
anger,  a  disposition  to  regard  this  moral 
anger  as  the  first  essential  of  a  religious 
character  in  individual  or  nation.  In  the 
past  it  has  undoubtedly  been  one  chief 
factor  in  binding  together  human  groups, 
but  it  has  hindered  the  development  of  an 
aptitude  for  charity  and  social  forgiveness. 
We  may  undoubtedly  observe  a  large 
difference  between  the  more  primitive  and 
the  more  advanced  morality:  the  first 
is,  in  the  main,  a  slavish  imitation  of  out- 
ward acts;  the  second  becomes  more  and 
more  an  effort  to  adapt  principles  of  con- 
duct held  in  common  by  a  group  to  ends 
approved  by  the  group.  It  still  remains 
true  that  the  sentiment  of  outraged  pro- 
priety at  any  action  which  defies  a  com- 
monly accepted  rule  of  right,  and  the 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  123 

determination  that  it  shall  be  punished, 
are  the  same  in  the  Red  Indian  of  the 
Saskatchewan  and  in  an  Oxford  don,  was 
the  same  in  ancient  Israel  or  in  ancient 
Babylon  or  Rome  as  it  is  in  a  modern 
Wesleyan  preacher,  and  by  each  and  all 
has  always  been  attributed  to  the  God  or 
gods  in  whom  they  trusted. 

It  is  therefore  important  to  notice  Summary, 
that,  whether  from  the  beginning  man's 
development  might  have  followed  a  higher 
line  or  not,  in  the  line  it  actually  followed 
his  conception  of  God  as  vindictive,  with 
its  accompaniment  of  human  "righteous 
indignation,"  has  in  the  past  been  both  the 
cement  which  held  together  human  groups 
until  they  were  strong  enough  for  expan- 
sion, and  the  prison  which  bound  them  so 
that  they  could  not  expand  into  higher 
social  developments. 

Thus  we  have  reason  to  suppose  that  in 
this  historic  conception  of  Divine  power, 
and  its  consequent  conception  of  human 
duty  or  righteous   sentiment,  there  was 
something  right   and   something  wrong;  Wanted,  a 
and  if  we  are  going  to  survive  by  improv-  Morality, 
ing  on  the  past,  this  is  the  most  important 
matter  for  analysis  and  revision.     Most 
of  the  human  groups  of  the  early  world 


124  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

failed  to  emerge  into  nations  because  they 
were  hide-bound  by  the  fear  of  Divine 
anger  and  the  strength  of  their  own  moral 
angers ;  by  their  consequent  lack  of  charity 
and  failure  to  exalt  the  kindliness  which 
seeks  to  understand  rather  than  condemn. 
But  some  groups  which  had  attained  large 
development  seem  to  have  fallen  to  pieces 
because  they  lost  vivid  belief  in  Divine 
government  and  ceased  to  have  passionate 
moral  sentiments.  We  must  not  avoid 
Scylla  by  casting  our  ship  into  Charybdis. 
We  must  stop  and  think.  Vindictive  and 
punitive  passion  is  destructive,  and  in  the 
past  God  has  been  thought  of  as  destruc- 
tive. One  curious  witness  to  this  is  the 
phrase,  "act  of  God,"  still  used  in  all  our 
bills  of  lading,  meaning,  "unforeseeable 
disaster."  But  we  have  seen  that  the  vital 
principle  is  always  constructive;  life  is 
always  evolving  higher  and  higher  organ- 
isms. Man's  mind  is  predominantly  con- 
structive. God's  mind  must  be  wholly  so, 
and  the  Power  of  God  will  express  itself 
only  in  ways  that  are  constructive. 

Education  by  religious  experience  has 
been,  and  must  still  be,  a  constructive  force. 
At  first  sight  many  have  been  inclined  to 
say  that  neither  in  the  process  of  natural 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  125 

or  of  religious  evolution  can  we  trace  any 
evidence  whatever  of  Divine  action.  But 
we  have  agreed  there  is  reason  to  believe 
God's  mind  is  seen  in  the  trend  of  natural 
evolution,  and,  a  fortiori,  we  may  see  God 
in  the  educative  power  of  experience  by 
which  man's  spiritual  life  has  developed. 
Further,  we  have  direct  evidence  of  the 
sense  of  God  in  that  we  find  humanity 
busy,  from  first  to  last,  seeking  to  corre- 
spond with  an  unseen  spiritual  reality.  It 
is  true  that  men  have,  for  the  most  part, 
attributed  false  notions  and  false  disposi- 
tions to  God,  and  so  misinterpreted  their 
own  daily  duty.  But  this  very  fact  must 
lead  us  to  mistrust  our  own  preconceived 
notions  of  the  Divine  will  and  the  divinely 
appointed  moral  sanctions,  it  does  not 
justify  the  assumption  that  we  are  living 
in  no  environment  of  Divine  government 
closely  concerned  with  the  detail  of  our 
lives.  It  must  eventually  lead  us  to 
cast  about  for  a  conception  of  Divine 
government  as  it  concerns  daily  duty 
which  will  more  closely  fit  the  facts  of 
human  development. 

God  is  not  God  unless  He  is  power.  Power  as 
Omnipotence  belongs  to  our  conception 
of  God.    Unless  He  govern  our  Universe 


126  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

He  is  not  really  God,  but  only  a  minor 
deity.  But  we  have  seen  that  an  omnipo- 
tent being  cannot  use  all  sorts  of  forces 
indiscriminately  to  one  end.  If  God  has 
brought  our  world  into  being  in  order  that 
life  may  develop  under  the  training  of 
experience  into  free  intelligence,  able  to 
have  communion  with  Himself,  it  must  be 
a  world  bound  by  the  law  of  inevitable 
consequence,  it  must  be  a  natural  system 
of  calculable  effects.  Physical  disasters 
must  follow  ignorance  or  neglect  of  physi- 
cal law;  mental  degeneration  must  follow 
the  lower  spiritual  choice.  God  cannot, 
while  teaching  by  experience,  be  acting  as 
a  deus  ex  machina,  by  direct  fiat  of  His 
will  adjusting  physical  disasters  to  those 
who  fail  in  such  virtues  as  justice,  mercy 
and  probity,  adjusting  such  psychic  effects 
as  hard-heartedness  and  self-deception  to 
those  who  fail  in  applied  science.  The 
lack  of  domestic  virtues  could  not,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  have  brought  on  the 
Flood  or  a  plague  of  poisonous  serpents, 
nor  could  failure  in  religious  ritual  have 
brought  a  pestilence  or  the  invasion  of  a 
foreign  army.  The  causes  of  such  dis- 
asters are  lack  of  precautionary  measures 
or  of  cleanliness  or  of  diplomacy.  We 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  127 

have  for  the  most  part  reached  a  stage 
where  we  are  all  ready  to  accept  this.  We 
realise  that  if,  as  Christians  are  bound  to 
believe,  the  Divine  Spirit  is  brooding  over 
humanity  to  bring  forth  a  people  which 
will  freely  choose  the  good,  the  natural 
results,  both  physical  and  spiritual,  of  all 
actions  must  be  allowed  to  have  full  sway. 
The  Divine  power  must  be  sustaining  a 
system  of  cause  and  effect.  Kind  action 
and  clever  action  will  each  have  different 
sorts  of  beneficial  results  on  the  soul  of 
the  doer  and  on  the  community.  Both 
sorts  will  be  necessary  to  make  the  good 
life — the  good  man  or  the  good  civilisa- 
tion. The  stupid  and  cruel  actions  will 
have  their  results;  both  will  be  necessary 
to  bring  about  degeneration. 

The  sustaining  of  this  calculable  Uni- 
verse is  one  manifestation  of  the  power  of 
God,  and  it  is  a  manifestation  without 
which  this  could  not  be  a  training  ground 
for  souls.  Yet  other,  and  in  a  sense  more  Power  as 
characteristic,  manifestation  of  His  power 
may  be  seen  in  that  inspiration  of  souls 
by  virtue  of  which  they  can  learn  wis- 
dom, transmute  suffering  into  joy  by  the 
alchemy  of  purpose,  and  evil  into  good  by 
forgiveness;  and  these  powers  are  fully 


128  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

compatible  with  that  dependability  of  God 
which  we  call  in  the  reign  of  law. 

First,  with  regard  to  inspiration  of  the 
intellect,  it  must  be,  as  all  would  admit, 
of  the  nature  of  tutoring.  Our  own  earlier 
and  cruder  method  of  teaching  was  by 
imparting  accumulated  scraps  of  knowl- 
edge, and  beating  the  pupil  who  did  not 
acquire  them  by  rote,  under  which  method 
only  those  with  some  great  aptitude  ac- 
quired much  knowledge.  Now  we  have 
learned  by  long  experience  that  the  best 
tutor  is  he  who  helps  the  pupil  to  discover 
the  needed  knowledge  for  himself,  and  to 
reflect  fruitfully  upon  his  discoveries. 
Under  this  new  method  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  pupils  become  able  to 
make  their  own  contribution  to  the 
world's  wisdom.  We  cannot  attribute 
to  the  Divine  educator  the  cruder  method. 
But  the  bestowal  of  spiritual  help  to 
discover  and  to  reflect  is  quite  compatible 
with  the  exercise  of  the  spiritual  power 
that  sustains  the  sequence  of  cause  and 
effect. 

This  is  also  true  of  the  gift  of  such 
inspiration  as  would  show  man  how  to 
conceive  a  purpose  and  end  that  would 
convert  his  suffering  into  joy.  We  know 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  129 

that  hardship,  even  most  painful  and  long 
hardship,  is  counted  all  joy  for  the  sake 
of  winning  a  race,  or  gaining  a  game,  or 
discovering  a  "pole,"  or  making  a  fortune 
or  a  reputation.  The  parent  who  would 
restrain  a  youth  from  such  enterprise 
would  be,  not  kind,  but  tyrannical.  The 
inspiration,  then,  that  enables  man  to 
conceive  a  glorious  goal  for  the  race  and 
for  each  individual,  could  cause  him  to 
count  it  all  joy  to  fall  into  divers  dis- 
tresses without  any  abrogation  of  the  sanc- 
tion of  consequence  involved  in  the  reign 
of  law. 

An  even  more  signal  exercise  of  Divine  Power  as 
power  would  surely  be  to  transmute  the  Ration?" 
evil  of  wrong  choice  into  good  without 
interfering  with  the  psychological  law 
of  cause  and  effect.  Is  this  possible? 
Nowadays  we  hold  no  brief  for  the  theory 
of  man's  total  depravity.  We  are  ready 
to  believe  that  from  the  first  to  the  pres- 
ent time  the  natural  good  and  evil  in  him 
have  been  pretty  equal ;  but  it  would  seem 
inevitable  that  his  evil  acts  and  disposi- 
tions should  estrange  him  from  his  Divine 
spiritual  environment.  But,  mark  this, 
when  man  has  done  what  could  repel  a 
spiritual  being,  he  has  done  a  spiritual 


130  POWEE— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

act,  and  thereby  entered  into  a  realm  of 
being  higher  than  the  animal  or  non- 
spiritual  life.  And  what  if  God  will  not 
be  estranged?  Then  surely  the  whole 
spiritual  Universe,  instead  of  being  an- 
tagonised, has  its  antagonism  transmuted 
into  a  greater  opportunity  for  the  erring 
soul. 

Let  us  try,  for  just  one  moment,  to  for- 
get all  theological  definitions  of  sin  or 
expiation,  all  definitions  of  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile and  Christian,  and  think  only  of  the 
agelong  drama  of  human  development,  of 
the  men  and  women  and  children  of  the 
old  Stone  epochs  and  the  new  Stone 
epochs  and  of  the  three  Bronze  ages,  of 
the  cave  dwellers  and  the  lake  dwellers, 
the  forest  dwellers  and  the  tribes  of  the 
grass  lands  and  the  corn  growers  of  the 
river  valleys,  all  products  of  a  greater 
antiquity,  all  gone  before  our  histories 
begin,  and  each  one — if  the  Christian  faith 
is  worth  anything — dear  to  the  heart  of 
God.  If  we  mean  anything  by  "the 
fatherhood  of  God"  we  mean  that  in  sym- 
pathy God  must  have  been  with  them  in 
this  world  system  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
that  through  all  the  school  of  experience 
He  must  by  sympathy  have  rejoiced  in 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  131 

their  joys  and  suffered  in  their  pains. 
There  must  have  been  a  sufficient  end,  an 
end  worth  this  Divine  suffering;  and  that 
end,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  seems  to  have 
been  the  making  of  souls  or  spirits  capa- 
ble of  uniting  in  a  perfect  social  environ- 
ment or  whole.  In  these  souls  there  were 
three  elements  of  what  we  should  call  evil 
action.  There  were  the  hereditary  charac- 
teristics of  the  ape  or  the  tiger  or — as  we 
may  also  say — of  the  donkey,  which  would 
often  overmaster  the  newer  impulses  of 
intelligence  and  rational  values.  There 
would  also  be  what  we  now  call  neuras- 
thenic reactions.  Just  as  animals  that 
have  been  cruelly  treated  or  greatly 
frightened  become,  as  we  say,  "vicious," 
so  man  must  often  have  become  abnormal 
through  disaster.  Evil  done  through 
these  causes  God  could  only  pity  and  con- 
done, for  the  individual  man  or  genera- 
tion was  not  responsible.  There  is  a  third 
element  of  deliberate  wrong  choice,  when 
an  opportunity  of  doing  something  good 
is  seen  and  rejected.  However  small  this 
element  of  free  choice  between  good  and 
evil  may  have  been  in  the  life  of  primitive 
man,  it  is  by  this  element  that  he  becomes 
a  free  spirit,  a  reasonable  soul.  It  is  only 


132  POWER—  HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

as  an  intelligence  freely  chooses  to  em- 
brace or  neglect  an  opportunity  that  it 
proves  itself  free,  that  it  becomes  free  in 
the  choosing.  And  whether  the  choice  be 
right  or  wrong,  it  is  a  spiritual  act.  Such 
acts  when  right  would  naturally  bring 
man  into  better  understanding  of  God  and 
make  him  open  to  Divine  inspiration. 
Only  by  such  free  acts  when  wrong  could 
man  antagonise  a  just  God.  But  what 
if  God  refused  to  be  antagonised?  If 
through  His  pain  of  disappointment  He 
transmuted  what  tended  toward  estrange- 
ment into  a  closer  bond  of  continued  in- 
spiration, that  would  be  an  act  of  personal 
power  of  a  higher  sort  than  any  other  we 
can  conceive. 

Mercy  and        Now  this  is  just  what  the  religious  mind 
Wrath.         Q£  ^.jie  pas^  groping  in  many  directions 


after  truth,  has  often  grasped  as  "mercy" 
and  seen  as  a  correlative  of  God's  reputed 
tendency  to  wrath  and  destruction.  God's 
mercy  has  often  been  apprehended  by 
spiritual  souls  and  expressed  in  visions  of 
surpassing  beauty,  but  unfortunately  it 
has  always  been  swiftly  hedged  about  by 
doctrines  which  conditioned  the  Divine 
mercy  while  declaring  the  Divine  wrath 
to  be  unconditioned.  At  best,  it  has  been 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  133 

held,  God  only  forgives  when  man  first 
repents. 

Let  us,  for  the  time,  forget  these  doc-  Forgiveness 
trines  and  ask  ourselves  how,  when  primi- 
tive  man  first  began  to  make  free  choices  ance. 
between  good  and  evil,  God's  forgiveness 
might  have  waited  for  his  repentance. 
Nothing  is  more  perfectly  obvious  in 
studying  early  religions  than  that  man's 
notion  of  good  and  evil  did  not  represent 
the  realities.  In  this  the  repeated  cry  of 
Hebrew  prophets  corroborates  anthropo- 
logical research.  Justice  and  mercy  were 
overlaid  in  primitive  minds  by  ritual 
exactions.  For  example,  cannibals  might 
repent  and  offer  propitiation  for  a  breach 
of  fantastic  taboo,  but  they  did  not  repent 
that  attitude  of  heart  which  caused  them 
to  devour  their  enemies.  Yet  these  same 
tribes  are  found  to  have  such  glimmerings 
of  real  mercy  toward  child  and  beast  as 
could  only  be  won  by  possibility  of  de- 
liberate choice  between  good  and  evil. 
Opportunities  of  pity  seen  for  a  moment 
and,  when  rejected,  as  swiftly  forgotten, 
could  not  be  repented  of.  And  yet  such 
rejection  of  better  impulses  would  be  the 
real  sins  of  the  savage  against  God.  Can 
we  suppose  that  God's  forgiveness  here 


134  POWEE— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

waited  on  human  repentance?  If,  on  the 
contrary,  God's  love  transcended  the 
offence,  that  means  that  God  took  some 
other  way  of  dealing  with  and  overcoming 
the  evil.  The  true  alternative  to  punitive 
anger  is  not,  as  our  doctrinaires  often 
assume,  laisser  faire,  nor  is  it  indifference 

True  and      or  good-natured  tolerance.  These  disposi- 
False  For-      ,  •  -t          ,  i     •       •    i  •  •         i 

giveness.       tions  are  good  on  their  right  occasion,  but 

very  evil  on  an  occasion  that  requires 
either  punitive  anger  or  that  tremendous 
achievement  of  love  which  transforms  the 
evil  into  a  higher  good  by  the  self -giving 
of  the  injured  spirit.  Whatever  else  for- 
giveness be,  it  is  not,  and  never  can  be, 
indifference  to  the  repetition  of  the  sin. 
The  pious  voices  which  resound  from  half 
the  pulpits  in  Christendom  to  warn  us 
against  supposing  that  God  forgives  too 
easily  are  the  voices  of  men  who  never 
themselves  really  forgave.  The  experi- 
ence of  true  forgiveness  would  bring  home 
to  them  its  essential  cost.  It  is  as  intelli- 
gent to  talk  of  easy  suffering  or  easy 
agony  as  of  easy  forgiveness.  Forgive- 
ness, in  the  heart  of  a  child  or  an  arch- 
angel, in  the  heart  of  man  or  of  God,  is 
in  essence  the  struggle  between  the  uni- 
versal spiritual  evil  and  universal  spiritual 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  135 

good,  a  conflict  in  which  good  triumphs 
only  through  the  voluntary  suffering  of 
the  injured.  Each  being  who  forgives 
endures  to  the  extent  of  his  capacity  the 
whole  spiritual  conflict.  No  one  who  has 
suffered  agony  desires  to  suffer  again. 
Suffering  is  not  suffering  unless  it  create 
the  desire  to  get  rid  of  its  cause.  To  for- 
give indicates  the  most  eager  desire  that 
the  offender  shall  not  repeat  the  offence. 
It  involves  such  self-giving  as  may  be 
possible  to  the  end  that  the  offender  may 
reform  himself  till  offensive  actions  be- 
come impossible  to  him.  In  the  atmos- 
phere of  realised  forgiveness  offence  by 
a  responsible  agent  gradually  becomes 
impossible.  Even  in  human  society  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  supreme  power  is 
forgiveness  in  that  it  accomplishes  the 
highest  possible  achievements  in  reforma- 
tion of  the  highest  natures. 

We  can  see,  too,  that,  for  the  attainment  Forgiveness 
of  this   particular   end,   forgiveness   and  Ispower* 
moral  wrath  are  not  compatible  methods, 
nor  is  habitual  forgiveness  and  habitual 
wrath  possible  in  the  same  character.    If, 
then,  it  be  God's  will  that  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  more  and  more  clearly  recognized 
forgiveness   offences   should  become  im- 


136  POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

possible  to  responsible  spirits,  He  is 
exercising  supreme  power  if,  while  sus- 
taining this  whole  universe  of  cause  and 
effect,  He  is  forgiving  every  offence  of 
each  sentient  creature  that  develops  moral 
responsibility  by  the  education  of  experi- 
ence. 

We  live  amid  much  confusion  of 
thought  about  forgiveness.  One  says, 
"I  forgave  the  poor  devil  because  I  felt 
sure  he  could  not  help  what  he  did."  An- 
other says,  "I  forgave  because  he  knew 
no  better."  A  third  will  calmly  tell  us 
that  he  forgives  easily  "because  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  worry  over  offences." 
Nothing  of  all  this  is  forgiveness.  It  is 
quite  true,  as  has  been  said,  that  it  is  well 
to  overlook  most  of  our  neighbours'  an- 
noying ways  on  these  grounds.  Just  as 
we  cannot  forgive  a  storm  or  a  fire  for  the 
injury  it  does  us,  so  we  cannot  forgive  a 
human  agent  unless  we  believe  him  to  be 
responsible.  Nor  do  we  forgive  if  we  are 
passing  over  offences  for  the  sake  of  our 
own  peace.  We  can  only  forgive  when 
we  suffer  acutely  under  an  injury  and 
know  that  the  agent  was  fully  responsible. 
We  can  only  forgive  by  setting  the  wel- 
fare of  the  offender  before  our  own  wel- 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  137 

fare.  Forgiveness  is  the  greatest  achieve- 
ment of  human  love,  and  accomplishes 
more  than  anger  can  to  elevate  both  the 
soul  that  forgives,  the  soul  forgiven,  and 
the  community. 

If  that  be  so  with  men,  in  transferring  How  God 
the  figure  of  forgiveness  to  God  we  must  Forgive, 
believe  that  His  forgiveness  is  infinitely 
more — more  costly,  more  efficacious. 

But  in  our  thought  of  God's  forgiveness 
there  is  the  same  confusion,  inverted  as  it 
were.  One  says,  "I  do  not  see  what  God 
has  to  forgive  in  human  conduct.  Man's 
evil  deeds  are  mostly  due  to  heredity  and 
environment ;  ignorance,  unmanageable 
passions  and  ill-balanced  nerves  account 
for  most  of  them.  Men  do  not  ask  to  be 
born ;  God  is  responsible  for  the  mess  they 
make  of  things."  Here,  again,  we  suffer 
from  our  own  armchair  or  cloistered  doc- 
trinaires, we  who  in  the  past  have  too  often 
talked  as  if  every  man  carried  a  rule  of 
ideal  conduct  and  could,  if  he  would,  con- 
form all  his  conduct  to  it,  so  that  he  must 
always  think  of  God  as  displeased  with  all 
his  shortcomings.  Such  absurd  teaching 
naturally  causes  men  to  blaspheme.  We 
cannot  believe  that  God  can  forgive  the 
lion  for  tearing  its  prey,  or  the  ape  for  its 


138  POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

chattering  mischief,  or  the  donkey  for  its 
most  distressing  lamentations.  Whether 
these  creatures  have  or  have  not  developed 
along  the  line  of  God's  ideal,  the  indi- 
viduals are  in  no  way  to  blame  for  their 
habits.  And  so  with  man.  The  successive 
generations  bring  with  them  stupidities 
and  irritabilities  innumerable.  They  per- 
form millions  of  horrid  actions,  for  which 
no  individual  is  responsible.  God,  who 
sustains  the  fabric  of  the  ages,  must  look 
upon  all  such  evils  with  indulgence  and 
kindly  excuse,  must  see  an  educational 
purpose  so  great  that  they  are  related  to 
it  as  nursery  faults  are  related  to  the  adult 
life.  But  it  remains  true  that  just  in  so 
far  as  each  human  person  has  a  reasonable 
soul,  is  in  any  sense  a  free  spirit,  he  has  his 
glimpses  of  a  higher  possibility,  his  mo- 
ments, or  it  may  be  hours,  of  higher  oppor- 
tunity, which,  if  he  would,  he  could  em- 
brace. If  we  consider  that  God  is  in  sym- 
pathy with  all  the  pain,  as  well  as  all  the 
joy,  of  the  long  creative  process,  if  we 
have  set  aside  the  old,  impossible  doctrine 
that  all  is  predetermined,  we  can  under- 
stand somewhat  of  the  disappointment 
God  must  suffer  when  man  rejects  his 
opportunity.  It  is  this  pain  of  disappoint- 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE   139 

ment  inflicted  by  man  that  must  evoke 
either  punitive  anger  or  forgiveness. 

And  that  it  has  evoked  forgiveness  Proof  that 
follows  from  this  consideration:  forgive-  Forgiven, 
ness  refused  would  have  meant  inspiration 
withheld.  And  if  God  had  withdrawn 
His  inspiration  from  unrepentant  man  be- 
cause of  his  free  rejection  of  opportunity, 
mankind  could  not  have  gone  on  to  de- 
velop more  and  more  freedom  of  choice. 
For  by  our  hypothesis — which  is  that  God 
helps  man  by  indwelling  him  in  so  far 
as  man  will  accept  that  indwelling — we 
are  driven  to  believe  that  all  progress  in 
the  attainment  of  truth  and  beauty  and 
brotherly  love  comes  by  the  inspiration  of 
God  constantly  proffered  to  the  develop- 
ing mind.  We  must  believe  that  whenever 
man  sees  his  opportunity  and  makes  the 
higher  choice,  he  opens,  as  it  were,  the 
doors  of  his  soul  to  this  inspiration,  and 
the  result  is  not  only  a  tendency  to  develop 
a  good  habit,  but  clearer  vision.  And  if 
he  make  the  wrong  choice,  his  power  to 
make  it  involves  at  least  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  a  higher  good.  He  must  have 
perceived  the  opportunity  that  he  has  re- 
jected. He  is  therefore  on  a  higher  plane 
of  being  than  if  he  had  not  perceived ;  and 


140  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 


God's 
Character 
and  Man's 
Conduct. 


this  advantage  must  in  some  way  be 
utilised  by  God  if  His  purpose  is  the  ele- 
vation of  man's  soul.  If  man's  rejection 
of  the  good  caused  this  advantage  to  be 
entirely  lost,  by  causing  the  withdrawal 
of  God's  friendly  environment  and  in- 
spiration, there  would  be  no  human  prog- 
ress. If,  however,  God,  by  His  forgive- 
ness, transmutes  the  evil  of  rejection  into 
further  opportunity,  we  can  understand 
the  progress  which  has  taken  place. 

It  would  thus  seem  that  the  mere  fact 
of  human  progress  tends  to  establish  the 
presumption  that  the  true  God,  so  far 
from  being,  as  man  has  supposed,  in  a 
condition  of  almost  incessant  anger  and 
constantly  engaged  in  launching  thunder- 
bolts, has  surrounded  His  developing 
creation  from  first  to  last  with  a  spiritual 
atmosphere  of  gracious  friendliness  and 
free  forgiveness. 

If  we  thus  conceive  of  Divine  omnip- 
otence— if  we  believe  that  God's  character 
is  truly  love,  and  not  the  amalgam  of 
hostility  and  love  which  has  so  long  been 
accepted — it  will  naturally  have  a  great 
effect  upon  our  conception  of  duty.  From 
the  earliest  days  until  now  godliness  has 
always  been  the  attempt  to  be  Godlike. 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  141 

All  human  justice  has  been  the  mediation 
of  what  was  supposed  to  be  God's  will 
and  God's  action.  If  God's  attitude 
towards  men  is  one  of  constant  helpful- 
ness in  their  increasing  realisation  of 
truth  and  beauty  and  love,  then  of  course 
that  must  also  be  our  attitude  and  our 
business.  If,  in  this  helpfulness,  God 
excuses  men  for  all  the  evil-doing  they 
are  pushed  into  by  heredity  and  environ- 
ment, then  we  also  must  find  means  to 
excuse  them.  If  He  freely  forgives  them 
their  actual  sins,  then  we  also  must  freely 
forgive  them. 

What  is  commonly  called  man's  for-  inPor- 

n  /»  t»  i ,    giving  Does 

giveness  of  an  offence  presupposes  felt  QO& 

pain,  and  hostility  to  the  offender,  and 
consists  in  a  change  of  mind  involving  in- 
stead an  outflow  of  generous  sentiment 
toward  him.  But  when  we  try  to  apply 
the  conception  to  God  our  difficulty  is  that 
though  we  conceive  God  as  meeting  our 
offences  with  personal  forgiveness,  we 
cannot  believe  in  any  change  of  His  mind. 
With  God,  as  with  man,  forgiveness  must 
imply  pain  caused  by  the  wrong  done,  but 
instead  of  the  hostility  felt  towards  the 
offender  there  is,  we  may  humbly  believe, 
a  combative  determination  to  overcome  the 


142  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

evil  with  good — which  involves  no  change 
of  mind,  but  is  compatible  with  that  gen- 
erous outgoing  of  heart  to  the  offender 
that  we  believe  to  be  eternal  in  God,  and 
which  we  call  His  forgiveness.  As  far  as 
we  in  our  limited  way  can  understand,  this 
is  the  Godlike  reaction  to  all  evil,  which 
we  should  seek  to  share,  and  which,  when 
attained,  does  not  involve  in  man,  any 
more  than  in  God,  that  unfixity  of  pur- 
pose which  is  confusing  to  our  sense  of 
right,  blinding  us  to  the  true  righteous- 
ness of  God. 

Two  Now,  two  objections  against  this  view 

jec  ions.  Q£  human  duty  are  constantly  urged — the 
one,  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  revelation 
of  God  in  Christ;  the  other,  that  it  is 
subversive  of  all  law  and  order,  and  con- 
sequently militates  against  correspond- 
ence with  environment  and  fitness  to 
survive. 

(i)  The  We  must  all  admit  that  if  we  have  in 

Teaching      Christ  a  final  revelation   of   God,   that 

of  Christ,     revelation  must  be  patient  of  progressive 

interpretation.     Life  is  never  static,  and 

even  by  the  time  the  Fourth  Gospel  was 

written  it  was  clearly  realised  that  there 

was  large  room  for  the  Spirit  to  take  of 

the  things  of  Christ  and  interpret  them 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  143 

to  the  men  of  that  age.  If  we  regard  our 
Lord  as  the  supreme  religious  genius;  if 
we  believe  that  His  spiritual  nature  was 
such  that,  while  living  under  our  condi- 
tions He  was  aware  of  Reality  and  saw 
the  actual  truth  of  God's  attitude  to  man 
and  what  it  involved  in  man's  duty,  we 
must  perceive  that  in  mediating  this  to 
men  he  must  have  been  hampered,  not 
only  by  their  preconceived  and  obstinate 
notions  of  God  and  duty,  but  by  the  lan- 
guage, and  still  more  by  the  mental  pic- 
tures, which  these  religious  beliefs  had 
created.  We  must  therefore  expect  that 
in  any  account  of  His  life  we  shall  find 
the  teaching  which  was  subversive  of  the 
religious  notions  of  His  time  would  be 
that  which  was  most  original  to  Him,  and 
that  into  the  first  report  of  His  words  and 
actions,  and  into  all  subsequent  editings 
of  that  report,  the  shadows  of  ancestral 
tendencies  of  belief  and  traditional  ideas 
would  be  sure  to  press.  Such  a  clue  to  the 
interpretation  of  the  Gospels  is  not  sub- 
jective. It  is  a  legitimate  method  of  criti- 
cism applicable  to  any  ancient  teaching. 

We  know  that  all  down  the  ages  the  Incompat- 
conception  of  God  which  is  set  forth  in  jjfth^oid 
the  vindictive  Psalms — the  conception  of  Testament. 


144  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

the  Divine  heart  as  in  a  constant  ferment 
of  righteous  indignation — had  descended 
from  untold  generations  of  primitive  men, 
while  such  glimpses  of  Divine  love  as  we 
find  in  the  23rd  and  103rd  Psalms  are 
rare,  and  were  at  the  Christian  era  com- 
paratively recent.  The  whole  world, 
therefore,  into  which  Christianity  was 
introduced  tended  to  believe  in  the  efficacy 
of  Divine  wrath  and  human  punishments 
to  bring  about  the  ideal  state  at  which  all 
nations  aimed.  And  as  human  nature  in- 
variably attempts  to  produce  a  reasonable 
basis  for  the  sentiments  it  inherits,  most 
rational  argument  ran  on  the  same  lines. 
It  is,  however,  also  true  that  spiritual  in- 
sight manifest  in  a  thread  of  nobler  rea- 
soning had  come  down  the  ages.  "As 
the  heavens  are  high  above  the  earth,  so 
are  my  thoughts  higher  than  your 
thoughts,  saith  the  Lord."  "As  far  as  the 
east  is  from  the  west,  so  far  hath  he  re- 
moved our  transgressions  from  us." 
"Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so 
the  Lord  pitieth  them  that  fear  him."  The 
supreme  religious  genius  of  Jesus  Christ 
took  up  this  theme,  and  by  teaching  and 
living  He  showed  that  not  to  the  God- 
fearing alone  but  to  all  men  was  God 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  145 

gracious.  By  living  and  dying,  and  by 
giving  proof  of  His  continued  existence 
and  triumph  beyond  the  grave,  He  set  the 
Divine  seal  upon  this  interpretation  of 
God's  ways  with  men.  Such  interpreta- 
tion of  God  made  irresistible  appeal  to 
human  insight.  For  the  most  part,  as 
soon  as  men  have  understood  it  they  have 
accepted  it.  When  "lifted  up"  before 
human  minds  in  any  intelligible  represen- 
tation, His  light  has  been  seen  to  be  light. 
But  the  difficulty  has  been  that  it  has  been 
easier  for  man  to  hold  two  contradictories, 
to  try  to  live  by  two  incompatible  beliefs, 
than,  violating  recognised  custom,  to  face 
the  persecution  that  must  come  with  the 
breaking  of  taboo,  or  to  make  the  adven- 
ture into  unknown  seas  that  is  necessary 
for  the  discovery  of  new  worlds.  God 
and  Nature  called  for  adventurers,  and  in 
the  Christian  Church  the  adventurers  only 
set  out  in  cockle-shells  and  hugged  the 
shore. 

We  are  very  busy  yet  with  the  effort  to  —and  in 
interpret  the  good  news  of  the  Kingdom  w^™ 
so  that  it  will  harmonise  with  the  terrors  tianity. 
of  Mount  Sinai.     During  the  war  there 
has  been,  even  on  the  part  of  some  of  our 
younger  and  more  progressive  theologians, 


146  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

a  good  deal  of  writing  in  praise  of  the 
righteous  anger  which  Jesus  expressed 
against  the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  of  the 
blaze  of  manly  wrath  with  which  He  is 
supposed  to  have  violently  turned  the 
crowds  from  the  Temple  courts.  All  of 
which  is  held  to  sanctify  and  consecrate 
our  vindictive  anger  toward  our  enemies. 
But,  after  all,  it  is  well  to  recognise  that 
this  view  of  Christ  makes  His  character 
inconsistent  with  His  own  teaching.  In 
theological  circles  we  call  inconsistency 
paradox,  which  sounds  mystic  and  won- 
derful but  does  not  alter  the  fact.  Or  else, 
if  we  desire  consistency,  we  whittle  away 
our  Lord's  teaching  in  order  to  make 
room  for  the  wrath  that  we  so  senti- 
mentally love. 

Another  But  the  words  and  actions  of  our  Lord 

tatfon.re"  are  susceptible  of  quite  a  different  inter- 
pretation. Take,  for  instance,  the  Temple 
incident.  Anyone  who  will  patiently  work 
out  the  size  of  the  court  of  the  money- 
changers and  observe  from  contemporary 
records  that  it  must  have  been  thronged 
with  men  of  all  nations,  will  perceive 
that  the  physical  violence  of  one  man 
could  not  possibly  have  cleared  the  court. 
Again,  the  reproaches  addressed  to  the 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  147 

Pharisees,  even  if  not  exaggerated  and 
altered  by  indignant  editors,  could  all 
have  been  said  in  exactly  that  temper  in 
which  He  wept  over  Jerusalem  or  prayed 
that  His  torturers  might  be  forgiven  be- 
cause of  their  ignorance.  A  mother  whose 
whole  heart's  affection  was  centred  in  a 
reprobate  son,  who  cherished  in  her  heart 
nothing  but  forgiveness  toward  him,  once 
stood  up  and  with  strong  emotion  told 
him  exactly  what  she  thought  was  the 
cause  of  his  evil  deeds,  exactly  what  she 
believed  would  be  the  natural  result  if 
they  were  continued.  Her  language  was 
modern  and  not  so  poetic  as  that  of  the 
East  two  thousand  years  ago ;  but  it  came 
in  substance  to  very  much  what  our  Lord 
said  to  the  Pharisees.  It  was  the  verbal 
expression  of  her  moral  vision  when  ap- 
plied to  her  son's  life;  it  came  out  of  a 
whirlwind  of  moral  aspiration  that  broke 
down  all  reserve,  but  had  in  it  nothing  of 
the  emotion  that  we  call  anger.  What  she 
saw  was  the  natural  consequences  of  sin; 
the  expression  of  her  vision  was  the  warn- 
ing of  love,  exactly  the  same  sort  of  love 
as  would  have  made  her  fly  to  his  aid  had 
he  been  walking  blindfold  over  a  precipice 
or  into  a  furnace.  According  to  our  in- 


148  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

herited  sentiments  we  do  not  think  that 
sort  of  thing  sufficiently  manly  for  a  man. 
It  is  all  right  in  a  mother,  but  had  it  been 
father  or  brother  we  should  think  him 
feeble  if  incapable  of  rage.  Still,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  what  we  yet  call  manly 
we  shall  learn  to  call  brutal.  And,  that 
being  so,  we  have  no  right  to  lay  it  down 
as  an  established  fact  that  the  conception 
of  God  as  never  angry,  as  always  kind  to 
the  unthankful  and  the  evil  and  always 
forgiving  to  seventy  times  seven,  is  not  in 
harmony  with  the  revelation  of  Him 
through  Jesus  Christ. 

(ii)  The  It  is  further  objected  that  the  concep- 

ofaLaw  tion  of  God's  character  and  our  corre- 
and  Order,  spending  duty  which  I  am  urging,  is  sub- 
versive of  law  and  order.  The  late  war 
has  already  proved  very  nearly  subversive 
of  all  law  and  order  in  Europe.  If  that 
order  is  to  be  saved  from  complete  col- 
lapse it  cannot  be  by  more  militarism  and 
repression,  but  by  those  compromises  and 
friendly  overtures  between  class  and  class 
and  nation  and  nation  which  are  prompted 
by  forgiveness  and  brotherhood.  But  the 
late  war  itself  is  the  measure  of  the  failure 
of  centuries  of  Christian  teaching  which 
had  been  one  long  effort  to  harmonise  the 


POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  149 

cruelties  of  the  God  of  primitive  Israel 
with  the  character  and  teaching  of  Jesus 
Christ.  The  time  has  come  when  we  must 
halt  no  longer  between  two  opinions  about 
God. 

One  chief  reason  why  men  suppose  that 
extinction  of  moral  anger  would  cause  the 
disruption  of  society  is  that  they  have 
never  really  grasped  the  fact  that  we  live 
in  a  world  in  which  psychic  or  spiritual 
cause  and  effect  is  just  as  calculable  and 
acts  just  as  inevitably  as  do  the  laws 
which  govern  matter.  Even  if  men  do, 
by  loving  and  forgiving  their  neighbours, 
abolish  all  human  punishment,  deterrent 
or  disciplinary,  they  cannot  possibly  alter 
the  fact  that  consequences  discipline  and 
consequences  deter.  The  system  of  Na- 
ture which  we  believe  God  by  His  power 
upholds  is  an  order  majestic  and  invari- 
able. This  splendid  characteristic  of  Na- 
ture cannot  be  abolished  by  any  human 
effort.  Every  sin  brings  its  own  measure 
of  psychic  disturbance  and  incapacity  for 
pleasure,  and  psychic  disturbance  means 
ultimately  physical  degeneration,  and  de- 
generation in  the  individual  means  degen- 
eration in  the  community.  The  only  pos- 
sible way  to  mitigate  this  unfortunate 


150  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

result  is  by  the  practice  of  a  virtue  that 
will  bring  about  a  greater  good.  In  only 
one  way  can  God  or  man  save  sinners,  and 
that  is  by  persuading  them  to  practise 
virtues  that  will  bring  about  a  greater 
corresponding  good.  If  that  be  so,  and 
if  the  forgiveness  that  means  the  continu- 
ance of  friendly  help  and  brotherly  affec- 
tion is  in  reality  the  quickest  and  best  way 
of  making  men  good,  it  cannot  be  sub- 
versive of  law  and  order.  We  have  seen 
that  social  goodness  is  necessary  for  hu- 
man survival;  it  is  correspondence  with 
human  environment. 

Principles  But,  of  course,  to  see  the  truth  of  this 
Practice.  principle  and  to  arrive  at  the  application 
of  it  are  two  things  separable  in  time. 
We  learn  to  walk  by  falling;  we  solve 
our  problems  as  we  go  along,  and  we  only 
discover  new  worlds  by  setting  forth 
bravely  upon  uncharted  seas.  It  is  im- 
possible to  hold  the  conception  of  God's 
power,  and  therefore  glory,  which  we  have 
been  considering,  impossible  to  conceive 
thus  of  God's  action  in  the  world,  without 
being  out  of  harmony  with  very  much  that 
is  of  the  fabric  of  our  present  civilisation. 
Possessing  such  convictions,  we  cannot 
live  without  contributing  something  to  its 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE   151 

disintegration  by  initiating  the  growth 
of  a  better.  We  cannot  live  well  without 
working  consciously  to  that  end.  But  it 
is  very  easy  to  live  very  ill  indeed  if,  in 
order  to  uphold  God's  constructive 
power,  we  take  destructive  short  cuts.  If 
we  believe,  as  we  must,  that  the  progress 
of  life  is  the  manifestation  of  God's  power, 
we  must  remember  that  the  method  of 
life  is  construction,  that  even  when  it 
brings  about  alterations  or  terminates 
other  lives,  it  does  so  in  supplanting  what 
is  by  calling  into  existence  something 
fresh.  In  deciding  upon  a  practical  course 
of  action  it  is  necessary  also  to  think  much 
of  the  nature  of  life  as  exhibited  in  the 
long  biological  process — the  distinction 
between  evolution  and  revolution,  the  long 
patience  of  supersession  of  higher  by 
lower.  We  have  so  much  to  do  that  we 
cannot  afford  to  do  it  other  than  in  a 
Godlike  way,  for  only  thus  shall  we  avoid 
the  undoing  of  our  own  work  and  toilsome 
repetition. 

Just  as  certain  ideas  are  fruitful  in  the  creative 
construction  of,  let  us  say,  a  dwelling  or  Ideas- 
a  political  constitution,  producing  what 
bears  the  storm  and  stress  of  life,  so  cer- 
tain ideas  are  fruitful  in  bringing  eleva- 


152  POWER— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE 

tion  and  enlargement  to  the  inner  life,  and 
consequent  harmony  between  the  soul  and 
what  is  most  desirable  in  domestic  and 
public  activity.  The  study  of  comparative 
religion  has  made  it  appear  that  man's 
spiritual  life  has  developed  by  trial  and 
observation.  By  these  we  have  learned 
that  hostility  to  the  evil-doer  is  not  God's 
method  nor  a  Godlike  method — that  hos- 
tile passions  do  not  develop  our  fullest 
powers. 

Spreading  By  experience  we  must  also  learn  how 
to  bring  this  light  to  the  world.  We  need 
a  true  religious  science  of  missionary 
work.  We  are  only  at  the  very  beginning 
of  this;  but  at  least  one  law  of  the  soul's 
development  in  this  direction  has  already 
been  established.  We  must  regard  every 
moral  problem  as  subsumed  under  the 
splendour  of  the  whole,  and  see  it  set  in 
relation  to  all  the  lavish  beauty  of  the 
Universe,  all  the  gaiety  and  humour,  all 
the  serene  joy,  all  the  natural  goodness 
and  kindliness  of  life,  as  well  as  in  relation 
to  wrong,  ugliness  and  pain.  Only  by 
such  sweep  of  thought  can  we  realise  the 
importance  of  each  bit  of  reformatory 
work;  for  the  fineness  of  the  whole  lends 
importance  to  each  detail.  Only  by  such 


POWEK— HUMAN  AND  DIVINE  153 

sweep  of  thought  can  we  obtain  patience 
and  a  sufficient  sense  of  power  to  do  the 
work  magnanimously  and  magnificently, 
with  the  Divine  generosity  that  God  in- 
spires. 

It  is  not  true  that  if  God  be  with  us 
man  cannot  prevail  against  us.  Those 
who  break  with  tradition  are  always  con- 
demned, stoned  and  often  crucified;  but 
it  is  true  that  if  God  be  with  us,  not  only 
in  our  aim  but  in  our  method,  nothing 
can  prevail  against  the  cause  for  which 
we  work ;  and  if  we  believe  in  immortality 
we  must  believe  that  in  the  triumph  of 
the  cause  we  shall  also  triumph  immor- 
tally. 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 


The  Indi- 
vidual and 
the  Race. 


Practical 
Aim  of  This 
Chapter. 


BY  B.  HILLMAN  STREETER 

THE  facts  and  considerations  which  have 
been  adduced  in  the  earlier  chapters  of 
this  volume  go  a  long  way  towards 
establishing  the  conclusion  that  viewed  as 
a  whole  the  tendency  which  has  expressed 
itself  in  the  course  of  biological  evolution 
is  one  "that  makes  for  righteousness." 
It  is  much  to  have  found  grounds  for  the 
conviction  that  a  glorious  consummation 
awaits  the  long  struggle  of  humanity — but 
there  still  remains  the  problem  of  the  fate 
of  the  individual  man  meanwhile.  It  is 
a  great  thing  to  know  that  the  column  will 
reach  its  destination — but  what  of  the 
many  who  drop  out  on  the  march? 

In  this  chapter  I  approach  the  problem 
of  the  pain  and  moral  failure  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  I  do  so  with  an  interest  not  so 
much  theoretical  as  practical.  I  attempt 
no  explanation  of  its  origin  or  purpose. 
Pain  (whatever  its  explanation)  is  part  of 


154 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         155 

the  environment  in  which  we  have  to  live. 
I  ask  how  we  can  adapt  ourselves  to  that 
environment,  or  rather  how  we  can  adapt 
the  environment  to  ourselves — for  to  do 
that  is  the  unique  biological  distinction  of 
man.  Can  we,  instead  of  being  crushed 
by  the  difficulties  we  have  to  face,  use 
them  rather  as  a  stimulus  along  the  route 
to  individual  as  well  as  social  progress?  I 
ask  whether,  in  regard  to  the  moral  failure 
and  the  suffering — past,  present  and  to 
come — which  falls  within  the  experience 
of  any  individual,  we  can  say,  "There  is  is  there  ^a 
a  way  out."  I  suggest  that,  along  lines 
indicated  in  the  New  Testament  and  con- 
firmed by  the  teaching  of  modern  science, 
each  one  of  us  may  find  a  way  in  which 
to  cope  successfully  with  that  particular 
share  of  the  world's  evil  with  which  he  or 
she  personally  is  brought  in  contact.  In 
the  first  part  of  the  chapter  I  shall 
treat  of  pain  as  such,  without  any  at- 
tempt to  discriminate  between  pain  which, 
like  remorse,  is  connected  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  moral  failure  and  the  pain 
which  is  not  so  caused.  Pain  can  be 
discussed  scientifically  as  a  purely  psycho- 
logical phenomenon;  it  can  also  be  con- 
sidered in  its  bearing  on  moral  values.  I 


156         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

begin  with  the  simpler,  and  proceed  later 
to  the  more  complex,  problem. 

PAIN 

Pain  We  are  apt  to  underestimate  the  extent 

Physical  |_o  ^jjj^  pam  js  of  mental  origin.  Anxiety 
Mental.  and  disappointment,  fear  and  regret, 
humiliation  and  remorse,  the  sense  of 
desolation  and  despair,  constitute  the  main 
burden  of  civilised  man ;  and  all  these  are 
of  the  mind.  In  normal  times  the  amount 
of  suffering  due  to  causes  entirely  physi- 
cal— wounds,  accident  or  disease — would, 
for  the  majority  of  men,  be  a  relatively 
small  proportion  of  the  whole;  for  the 
present  generation  the  war  has  vastly 
altered  the  proportion.  But  even  the  pain 
caused  by  physical  injury  is  determined 
by  mental  conditions  more  than  is  com- 
monly supposed.  There  are  stories  from 
the  front  of  men  in  the  excitement  of 
battle  or  retreat  being  for  a  long  while 
actually  unconscious  of  wounds  received. 
Experiments  in  hypnosis,  by  which  sensi- 
bility to  pain  can  be  either  enhanced,  so 
that  the  touch  of  a  finger  feels  like  a  hot 
iron,  or  reduced,  so  that  the  patient  feels 
nothing  under  the  surgeon's  knife,  point 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         157 

in  the  same  direction.  Quite  apart  from 
these  exceptional  conditions,  every  doctor 
or  nurse  knows  that  the  extent  and  acute- 
ness  with  which  pain  is  felt  varies  enor- 
mously with  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
sufferer.  That  patient  feels  pain  most 
who  most  dreads  it  and  who  concentrates 
his  or  her  attention  on  it  most.  Again, 
still  more  important  is  the  fact  that  the 
actual  quality  of  pain  and  its  mental  and 
physical  effects  differ  according  as  it  is 
borne  with  cheerfulness  or  despair,  with 
acceptance  or  resentment. 

If,  then,  most  suffering  is  predomi-  Man  and 
nantly  mental  in  origin,  and  if  the  mental  Dances." 
element  so  conditions  both  the  amount  and 
the  quality  of  suffering  purely  physical  in 
origin,  it  is  not  enough  to  attack  the 
problem  of  the  world's  suffering  from  the 
physical  side  alone.  It  must  be  attacked 
from  that  side,  but  it  is  far  more  essential 
to  approach  it  from  the  side  of  mind. 
And  precisely  for  this  reason  the  indi- 
vidual may  have  hope.  He  may  find  him- 
self— he  often  does  find  himself — up 
against  hard  facts  which  he  cannot  alter, 
or  burdened  with  a  physical  disability 
which  cannot  be  cured.  But  where  cir- 
cumstances cannot  be  altered  it  may  still 


158         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

be  possible  to  alter  one's  reaction  towards 
them. 

The  Especially  is  this  true  in  regard  to  the 

Suffering:  .      .  i  •  .1  i 

of  the  Past,  past:  this  cannot  be  undone,  but  my  re- 
action to  it  can  be  fundamentally  changed. 
I  cannot  unmake  the  sins,  sorrows  and  dis- 
appointments of  the  past,  but  may  it  not 
be  possible  so  to  change  my  attitude 
towards  them  as  completely  to  transform 
their  consequences  in  the  living  present, 
and  thereby,  so  to  speak,  to  remake  the 
past?  Christ  taught  that  this  is  possible, 
that  the  broken-hearted  can  be  healed 
and  that  sins  can  be  forgiven.  In  the 
following  pages  I  shall  attempt  to  show 
that  both  the  experience  of  everyday  life 
and  the  conclusions  of  modern  psychology 
prove  that  Christ  was  right. 

The  Spirit         Parts  of  the  New  Testament  are  unin- 

Letteria  telligible  to  those  who  have  no  special 
knowledge  of  the  literature  of  the  age  in 
which  it  was  written.  Parts,  again,  show 
obscurities  and  inconsistencies  which  we 
must  attribute  to  the  fact  that  its  authors 
were  trying  to  express  new  conceptions 
and  new  intuitions  by  means  of  language 
and  modes  of  thought  originally  adapted 
to  a  very  different  religious  outlook — and 
that  one  from  which  they  themselves  were 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         159 

only  partially  emancipated.  If  we  would 
get  at  the  great  ideas  which  are  its  essen- 
tial contribution  to  human  thought  and 
progress,  we  must  turn  aside  from  that 
exaggerated  respect  for  the  exact  exegesis 
of  single  texts  which  still  hampers  many 
even  of  those  who  think  they  have  out- 
grown the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration; 
otherwise  we  shall  get  an  impression  dis- 
tracted and  confused.  But  leave  on  one 
side  exegetical  and  archaeological  detail, 
concentrate  only  on  central  ideas,  and 
there  stands  out  from  its  pages  a  philoso- 
phy of  God  and  man,  and  in  particular  a 
way  of  approach  to  the  problem  of  suffer- 
ing, as  clear  as  it  is  simple,  adequate  and 
inspiring. 

In  the  New  Testament,  then,  so  inter-  God  and 
preted,  I  find  no  attempt  to  produce  a  theWorld* 
theory  of  why  evil  is  permitted  to  exist. 
Certainly  there  is  no  suggestion  that  this 
is  "the  best  of  all  possible  worlds."  On 
the  contrary,  so  far  from  being  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds,  it  is  a  world  that 
God  meant  to  be  a  great  deal  better  than 
it  is.  It  is  a  world  that  has  gone  awry, 
and  that  mainly  through  the  ignorance, 
the  folly,  the  malice,  the  greed,  and  the 
passions  of  men.  But  though  the  world 


160         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

is  not  now  what  it  should  be,  God  intends 
to  make  it  so.  In  fact,  He  is  actually 
engaged  in  making  it  so;  for  God  does 
not  stand  outside  the  world  serenely  con- 
templating the  misery  and  the  strife.  He 
is  no  doubt  in  a  sense  outside  and  beyond 
the  world,  but  He  is  also  inside  it,  im- 
manent in  it,  as  the  philosophers  say ;  and 
by  the  fact  of  His  immanence  He  takes 
His  share  in  the  suffering;  and  God's 
share  is,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase,  the  lion's 
share. 

Creative  But   this    suffering   is   not   just   mere 

suffering  with  no  end  or  result  beyond 
itself.  It  is  a  means  to  an  end,  the  means 
by  which  the  ignorance,  folly,  malice, 
greed  and  evil  passions  may  be  overcome, 
the  evil  wills  remade,  and  the  results  of 
evil  action  transmuted  and  undone.  But 
it  is  not  all  suffering  which  has  this  virtue. 
The  suffering  which  has  power  is  suffer- 
ing like  Christ's — suffering,  that  is,  faced 
for  the  sake  of  causes  and  ideals  like  those 
for  which  He  worked  and  died,  or  borne 
in  the  spirit  in  which  He  bore  His.  Christ, 
however,  is  not  merely  our  leader  and  our 
pattern.  He  is  also,  as  St  Paul  puts  it, 
"The  portrait  of  the  invisible  God."  His 
attitude  both  to  suffering  and  to  evil  is 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         161 

also  God's.  God  shares  in  the  suffering 
and  captains  in  the  fight.  And  God  sum- 
mons us  to  assist  Him  in  the  task,  to  enter 
into  partnership  with  Him — and  that  not 
only  in  the  suffering  but  also  in  the  vic- 
tory which  it  brings. 

This  view  of  the  power  and  possibilities  Suffering 
of  suffering  requires  analysis.  Much  cant  Degrades, 
is  talked  about  the  ennobling  and  purify- 
ing effect  of  suffering.  To  an  animal  pain 
may  be  useful  as  a  warning  of  danger  or  a 
spur  to  activity,  but  beyond  the  limited 
amount  required  for  that  purpose  it  de- 
bilitates and  depresses.  So  too  with  man, 
the  most  natural  effect  of  suffering  is  not 
to  ennoble  but  to  embitter,  not  to  purify 
but  to  weaken.  Joy  is  a  necessity  of  life, 
of  the  highest  life  as  well  as  of  the  lowest. 
The  natural  and  normal  reactions  of 
the  organism  to  suffering  are  vindictive- 
ness,  degradation,  peevishness  and  de- 
spair. Where  the  contrary  result  is  found 
it  is  because  there  is  something  in  man,  or 
in  some  men,  which  can  counteract  these 
"natural"  reactions.  And  this  something 
does  exist. 

That  is  the  secret,  dimly  grasped  by  The  "Con- 
heroic  men  and  women  throughout  all  * 
the  ages,  which  Christianity  first  publicly 


162         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

proclaimed:  the  natural  consequences  of 
suffering  can,  by  the  spirit  and  manner  in 
which  it  is  borne,  be  not  only  avoided  but 
actually  reversed.  Look  upon  suffering 
as  a  necessary  condition  of  labour  for  any 
cause  worth  working  for — whether  it  be 
the  learning  of  a  lesson,  the  production 
of  a  work  of  art,  the  bringing  up  of  a 
family  or  the  steering  of  a  ship  to  port — 
and  its  character  is  changed.  Realise  that 
the  stupidity,  the  indifference,  the  malice, 
and  the  selfishness  of  man  have  always 
been  such  an  obstacle  to  progress  that 
every  forward  step  must  be  paid  for  in 
blood  and  tears;  that,  because  casualties 
are  the  price  of  victory,  sacrifice,  pushed 
at  times  to  the  point  of  martyrdom, 
though  not  in  itself  desirable,  is  necessary 
and  worth  while — and  things  are  seen  in 
a  new  light.  If  it  is  in  this  way  and  in 
this  spirit  that  the  Divinity  immanent  in 
the  world  is  suffering,  striving,  overcom- 
ing, then  to  take  one's  share  in  the  work 
is  to  be  allowed,  as  St  Paul  puts  it,  to 
pay  part  of  "the  unpaid  balance  of  the 
sufferings  of  Christ."1  Then,  indeed,  not 
perhaps  every  day  and  always,  but  at 
least  in  our  moments  of  deeper  vision, 

1  Col.  i.  24, 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         163 

such  pain  becomes  no  longer  a  burden  but 
a  privilege. 

No  great  cause  has  ever  lacked  its  Suffering 
martyrs,  and  it  is  not  hard  to  see  how  Desolates, 
suffering  of  this  kind — suffering  volun- 
tarily risked,  or  even  actually  challenged, 
by  the  sufferer  for  the  sake  of  a  great 
work  or  a  great  ideal — may  ennoble  and 
inspire.  But  a  kind  of  suffering  harder 
to  be  borne  is  that  which,  whether  it  comes 
from  accident,  disease,  or  from  the  negli- 
gence or  malevolence  of  man,  is  in  no 
sense  connected  with,  or  the  direct  result 
of,  our  efforts  for  a  good  work  or  a  great 
cause.  Such  suffering,  so  far  from  being 
a  price  which  we  pay,  and  pay  willingly, 
for  the  sake  of  the  work,  is  often  the 
greatest  of  all  impediments  to  it,  a  knock- 
out blow  which,  humanly  speaking,  makes 
nugatory  all  our  hopes  and  our  achieve- 
ments. 

The  old  theology  said,  "Calamity  is  the  Calamity 
will  of  God:  submit."     But  is  calamity  win  of  ° 
the  will  of  God?    The  subject  is  one  upon  God- 
which  there  is  much  confusion  of  thought. 
No  doubt,  since  God  created  and  sustains 
the  Universe,  He  is  ultimately  respon- 
sible for  everything  in  it;  whatever  hap- 
pens is  the  result  of  something  He  has 


164         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

willed.  But  in  that  sense  sin,  quite  as 
much  as  suffering,  is  the  will  of  God — yet 
the  very  meaning  of  sin  is  that  it  is  some- 
thing contrary  to  His  will.  But  a  reason- 
able solution  is  not  far  to  seek.  God  is 
responsible  for  making  a  world  which  is 
a  connected  system — a  system  in  which 
causes  always  produce  their  appropriate 
effects,  where  good  produces  good,  and 
evil,  evil,  and  where  suffering  is  one  of  the 
effects  produced  by  ignorance  and  sin. 
But  God  is  not  responsible  for  the  extent 
to  which,  by  the  voluntary  choice  of 
created  spirits,  that  system  has  got  out  of 
gear — though,  if  the  conception  of  His 
work  and  character  implicit  in  Chris- 
tianity be  correct,  He  has  made  Himself 
responsible,  at  bitter  cost  to  Himself,  for 
setting  it  right  again. 

Character  It  is  often  argued  that  without  some 
flict.  °n"  element  of  strain  and  conflict  the  highest 
type  of  character  could  not  be  produced; 
and  again,  that  unless  the  consequences 
of  folly,  ignorance  or  evil  choice  were 
really  bad,  life  would  be  only  a  game  in 
which,  in  the  last  resort,  nothing  really 
mattered.  But  granting  this,  granted 
that  a  world  in  which  suffering  and  sin 
are  possible  is  better  than  one  where 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         165 

everything  were  necessarily  smooth  and 
easy,  and  therefore  a  world  better  worth 
while  creating,  what  follows?  We  may 
readily  admit  that  this  actual  world  can 
be  a  nursery  of  noble  souls  while  Lotus 
land  could  not  be,  yet  it  does  not  follow, 
either  that  the  total  amount  of  evil  in  the 
world  or  the  proportion  of  suffering  which 
falls  to  the  lot  of  each  particular  indi- 
vidual is  an  exact  expression  of  God's  will. 

To  refuse  to  accept  the  view  that  what-  Providence, 
ever  happens  is  in  accordance  with  the 
will  of  God,  does  not  mean  the  denial 
either  of  God's  prescience  or  of  His  provi- 
dence. An  Intelligence  which  itself  up- 
holds the  great  interconnected  system  of 
cause  and  effect  that  we  call  Nature,  and 
to  which  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  are  open, 
cannot  but  know  the  trend  and  tendencies 
of  things,  cannot  but  possess  an  actual 
foresight  of  the  future  which,  though 
falling  short  of  that  absolute  foreknowl- 
edge which  is  only  compatible  with  pre- 
destination, may  yet,  in  comparison  with 
our  human  foresight,  be  styled  omnis- 
cience. Again,  the  experience  of  all  reli- 
gious men  points  to  the  conclusion  that 
"there's  a  Divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
rough-hew  them  how  we  will."  Whether 


166         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

it  be  individuals  or  groups,  evidence  does 
suggest  that  those  who  "wait  upon  the 
Lord,"  who  endeavour,  that  is,  to  concen- 
trate their  minds  upon  the  Highest  in 
quiet  meditation,  and  act  in  response  to 
the  inspiration  which  they  get,  are  enabled 
to  overcome  difficulty,  to  escape  danger, 
and,  in  spite  of  loss  and  failure,  to  achieve 
high  ends.  The  facts  point  to  a  Provi- 
dence watching  over  us,  guiding  us  to 
wise  and  salutary  choice,  leading  us  to  the 
help  of  others  and  others  to  our  help ;  but 
they  also  suggest  that  by  reason  of  deaf- 
ness and  unresponsiveness  on  our  part  or 
on  theirs  God's  plan  may  temporarily 
miscarry.  The  experience  of  religious 
people  is  that  they  do  often,  to  an  extent 
quite  unexpected,  actually  avoid  disaster, 
they  can  "tread  upon  the  lion  and  adder" ; 
but  also,  where  disaster  does  come,  a  way 
of  recovery  equally  unexpected  is  in  the 
long  run  provided.  Where  God  does  not 
prevent,  He  cures. 

Bearing  The  conclusion  that  we  ought  not  to 

o^r^Abmty  regard  the  accidents  and  calamities  that 
to  "Love  '    come  to  us  as  directly  sent  by  God  is  one 
of  the  first  importance  for  practical  reli- 
gion.   It  is  almost  if  not  quite  impossible 
to  look  upon  the  loss  or  the  disease  which 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         167 

crushes  or  debilitates  as  a  direct  expres- 
sion of  the  will  of  God  and  still  whole- 
heartedly regard  Him  as  our  heavenly 
Father.  In  the  past,  and  even  in  the 
present,  there  seem  to  be  some  who  have 
succeeded  in  this  apparently  impossible 
endeavour;  but  certainly  from  ordinary 
human  nature  it  is  too  much  to  ask  for  a 
real  and  true  love  of  God  if  they  are 
taught  to  regard  all  the  evils  that  fall 
upon  them  as  visitations  deliberately  sent 
by  Him  as  chastisement  or  discipline.  Of 
course,  if  such  a  doctrine  were  true  we 
must  teach  it  and  take  the  consequences, 
but  if,  as  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe, 
it  is  not  true,  then  to  decline  frankly  and 
emphatically  to  repudiate  it  is  to  take 
away  the  key  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
and  hinder  those  from  entering  in  who 
otherwise  might  do  so. 

The  explanation  of  the  old  theology  The 
that  sickness  or  calamity  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  will  of  God  we  discard;  but  the  the  Old 
practical   moral   which   the   old   religion 
drew  from  it  was,  up  to  a  point — though 
only  up  to  a  point — quite  sound. 

To  repine  or  to  give  way  to  resentment  "Submis- 
in  the  face  of  undeserved  calamity  is  fatal.  "Accept- 
Unfortunately  either  repining  or  resent- 


168         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

merit  is  the  natural  instinctive  attitude  to 
take  up;  and  in  so  far  as  "submit  to  the 
will  of  God"  meant  "put  such  feelings 
right  away/'  it  was  good  advice.  But  the 
right  attitude  to  adopt  is,  to  my  mind, 
far  better  described  if  instead  of  "submis- 
sion" we  say  "acceptance."  Mere  sub- 
mission to  the  will  of  an  external  power 
is  negative,  it  is  a  dull,  drab  thing;  but 
acceptance  of  a  share,  still  more  the  will- 
ing acceptance  of  more  than  our  full 
share,  in  the  tragedy  of  life  —  a  tragedy 
in  which  God  as  well  as  man  is  an  actor  — 
is  positive,  it  has  about  it  something 
vitalising. 

The  Pain,   like   other   elemental   forces    in 

Attitude       Nature,  can  be  turned  to  use,  but  only  if 


towards  f^  ]aws  of  its  operation  are  first  under- 
stood and  then  conformed  to.  Natura 
parendo  imperatur,  but  the  "obedience" 
by  which  Nature  can  be  mastered  is  no 
mere  passive  submission  but  an  activity 
which  may  be  called  obedience  only  be- 
cause it  functions  always  in  conformity 
to  laws  and  principles  clearly  understood. 
So  it  is  with  pain.  Those  who  meet  it 
clear-eyed  and  with  a  positive  and  active 
acceptance,  who  "face  the  music,"  as  the 
slang  phrase  has  it,  those  who  are  ready 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         169 

not  only  to  "do  their  bit"  in  the  world's 
war  but  to  "bear  their  bit"  in  the  world's 
sorrow,  make  a  strange  discovery.  They 
find,  not  only  that  they  are  enabled  to 
bear  their  sorrow  in  a  way  which  hurts 
less — for  what  hurts  most  in  the  bearing 
is  that  which  is  most  resented,  what  is 
most  freely  accepted  hurts  least — but  that 
they  achieve  an  enrichment  and  a  growth 
of  personality  which  makes  them  centres 
of  influence  and  light  in  ways  of  which 
they  never  suspected  the  possibility. 

Few  things  can  so  inspire  and  re-create  Heroic 
the  human  heart  as  can  the  spectacle  of 
crushing  misfortune  cheerfully  and 
heroically  borne;  and  the  unconscious 
influence  which  those  who  do  this  exert 
is  far  greater  than  they  or  others  compre- 
hend. Here  is  the  element  of  truth  in  the 
common  talk  about  the  ennobling  and 
purifying  power  of  suffering;  though  it 
is  not  the  suffering  but  the  way  it  is  borne 
that  ennobles.  Pain,  not  just  submitted 
to  but  willingly  accepted,  makes  the  suf- 
ferer socially  creative.  A  man  counts  in 
this  world  to  the  extent  that  he  has 
thought  and  to  the  extent  that  he  has  felt, 
provided  always  that  he  has  thought  and 
felt  in  the  right  way.  Suffering  rightly 


When 
We  Have 

Failed. 


The 

Retrieval 
of  Past 
Errors. 


170         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

borne  is  constructive  work.  He  who  has 
"borne  his  bit"  has  also  "done  his  bit," 
and  pain  conquered  is  power. 

A  few  are  able  to  bear  their  sufferings 
in  this  way.  Most  of  us  have  failed  to  do 
so,  or  have  succeeded  very  partially.  We 
have  allowed  resentment  and  depression — 
which,  I  must  repeat,  are  after  all  the 
natural  consequences,  physical  and  psy- 
chological, of  a  severe  blow — to  enter 
into,  if  not  to  predominate  in,  our  out- 
look. The  suffering  which,  if  we  had 
accepted  it  as  a  privilege  or  utilised  it  as 
an  opportunity  (which  is  Christ's  way), 
would  have  enriched,  ennobled  and  forti- 
fied our  personalities,  we  have  faced  in  a 
way  which  has  had  the  contrary  effect. 
We  have  let  it  depress  our  enthusiasms, 
dim  our  ideals,  sap  our  vitality.  Is  there 
a  remedy  for  this? 

There  is :  but  it  is  one  which  has  rather 
fallen  out  of  sight  in  Christian  teaching. 
We  are  familiar  with  the  idea — later  on 
I  shall  attempt  to  justify  it — that  sins 
can  be  forgiven,  that  if  we  look  back  upon 
past  errors  in  the  right  spirit  they  can  be 
retrieved.  We  have  all  been  taught  that 
the  degeneration  which  is  the  natural  in- 
evitable consequence  of  sin  can  be  trans- 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         171 

formed,  that  it  need  not  remain  as  a 
standing  source  of  debility  in  the  soul, 
and  that  the  repentance  following  after 
wrongdoing  may  actually  bring  about  an 
enrichment  and  deepening  of  the  per- 
sonality— "to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the 
same  loveth  little."  But  in  ordinary  Chris- 
tian teaching  this  idea  has  only  been 
applied  to  breaches  of  certain  fundamental 
moral  laws.  It  is  not  ordinarily  applied 
to  the  failure  to  meet  suffering  in  the 
right  way,  though  this  failure  is  a  moral 
one  as  much  as  any  other;  it  differs  from 
other  moral  failures  only  in  being  less 
commonly  recognised  as  such.  But  if  it 
be  true  that  sins  of  one  kind  can  be,  as  we 
say,  "forgiven" — that  is,  if  their  naturally 
evil  consequences  upon  our  personalities 
can  be  transmuted  by  a  subsequent  change 
in  our  attitude  towards  them  and  God, 
so  that  what  once  was  sheer  loss  may  in 
another  way  become  a  form  of  gain — the 
same  must  surely  be  true  of  this  kind  of 
moral  failure  also. 

And    experience    shows    that    we    can  The 
transform  the  past  in  this  regard.    We 
can  bring  up   clearly   into  memory  the 
times  when  we  have  suffered  and  have  let 
that  suffering  fill  us  with  resentment  and 


172         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

despair.  We  can  realise  our  error  and 
deplore  it,  we  can  say  to  ourselves:  "No; 
all  said  and  done,  I  am  glad  that  in  the 
great  tragedy  of  humanity  I  have  borne 
my  part;  I  am  glad  that  I  have  tasted  of 
the  cup  which  is  the  heritage  of  man." 
And  in  proportion  as  we  can  say  this,  and 
mean  it,  our  whole  outlook  on  life,  our 
attitude  to  God  and  man,  is  changed.  We 
are  filled  with  a  new  joy — richer  by  rea- 
son of  what  we  have  endured;  we  are  in- 
spired with  a  sense  of  vitality  and  inner 
strength  more  deeply  rooted  because  of 
the  experience  we  have  passed  through. 
The  draught  which  when  first  drunk  was 
poison  is  transformed  into  wine.  The 
past  cannot  be  undone,  but  the  bitterness 
and  weakness  which  are  its  living  conse- 
quences in  the  present  are  not  only  can- 
celled but  reversed. 

Learn  Suffering  is  not  man's  only  teacher, 

or  Suffer  •  i   .  .* 

More.  as  some  have  seemed  to  urge — there  are 

things,  for  instance,  which  can  only  be 
learnt  through  joy — and  it  is  the  teacher 
whose  lessons  are  the  most  difficult  of  all 
to  learn.  If  at  first  we  decline  to  learn 
them,  we  suffer  more;  for  then  we  must 
endure,  not  only  the  original  pain,  but  the 
growing  resentment  or  the  life-draining 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         173 

melancholy  which  it  entails.  From  this 
further  suffering,  consequent  on  our  re- 
fusal to  learn  the  lesson  first  offered  to 
us,  another  and  a  different  lesson  can  be 
learnt.  But  the  actual  learning  of  it 
awaits  a  fundamental  change  of  attitude 
and  outlook  on  our  part,  a  perdvoia,  which, 
like  any  other  form  of  "conversion,"  may 
come  to  one  man  by  stages  slow  and  im- 
perceptible, to  another  with  a  sudden 
flash,  and  to  others  not  at  all. 

There  remains  the  most  difficult  prob-  The  Pain 
lem  of  all.  How  are  we  to  take  the  suf- 
fering  of  others,  especially  of  those  we 
love,  which  we  are  compelled  to  witness 
but  are  unable  to  alleviate,  and  which  in 
many  cases  we  can  see  is  not  being  borne 
— and  under  the  circumstances  can  hardly 
be  expected  to  be  borne — in  a  way  which 
can  be  otherwise  than  degrading  and  de- 
pressing? What  of  this?  There  are  times 
when,  though  we  cannot  alleviate,  we  can 
help  them  to  bear  their  suffering  in  the 
right  way;  could  we  completely  succeed 
in  this  we  might  perhaps,  though  with  an 
effort,  be  content.  But  there  are  also 
times  when,  called  upon  to  be  spectators 
of  physical  agony,  crushing  calamity,  or 
desolating  bereavement,  all  our  theories 


174         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

about  suffering  and  its  uses  simply  shrivel 
up,  and,  if  we  try  and  put  them  into 
words,  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  as  those 
that  mock. 

Co-opera-         Conquer  by  accepting.     The  principle 
tionwith         ,  •      •'    /    .1.  *.  •      4-u-          •  M. 

God.  that  pain  is  to  be  met  in  this  spirit,  and 

not  with  resentment  or  despair,  needs 
special  reassertion  when  we  thus  contem- 
plate the  pain  of  others.  For  it  may  be 
given  to  us  by  an  act  of  penetrating 
sympathy  to  enter  into  their  suffering 
and,  so  to  speak,  accept  it  for  them,  and 
thereby,  either  at  the  time  or  later  on,  help 
them  to  a  right  acceptance.  Still  more 
necessary  is  it  to  remind  ourselves  that 
God  feels  this  pain  as  much  as  we  do,  in- 
deed much  more,  by  reason  of  His  more 
perfect  sympathy.  This  fact  points  to 
the  solution:  "Cast  thy  burden  upon  the 
Lord,  he  shall  sustain  thee."  God,  too,  is 
bearing  the  suffering,  but  He  is  bearing 
it  in  the  right  way;  and  in  so  far  as  we 
can  open  up  our  souls  to  Him,  and 
through  communion  and  meditation  enter 
into  His  mind,  we  also  begin  to  bear  it  in 
the  right  way.  God's  way  of  bearing  suf- 
fering, like  everything  else  He  does,  is 
creative  and  constructive;  in  so  far  as  we 
bear  it  in  His  way,  the  negative  attitude 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         175 

of  repining  and  resentment  will  drop 
away,  and  we  too  shall  become  construc- 
tive and  creative.  The  right  act  or  the 
right  forbearance,  the  right  word  or  the 
right  silence,  will  be  given  us;  and  when 
these  are  impossible  or  inappropriate,  the 
right  thought,  the  right  feeling  and  the 
right  prayer.  And  often  these  may  be 
the  most  effective  things  of  all.  Men  are 
all  bound  together  by  unseen  telepathic 
ties  of  mutual  influence.  Each  of  us,  by 
merely  being  what  he  is,  contributes,  for 
better  or  for  worse,  more  than  he  knows 
to  the  mental  and  moral  outlook  of  those 
he  lives  with,  and  probably  of  others  to 
him  unknown.  He  who  is  trying  to  bear 
the  suffering  of  those  he  loves,  with  God, 
for  God  and  in  God's  way,  cannot  fail 
to  help  them,  and  to  help  others  also, 
though  he  may  sometimes  have  to  wait  a 
long  while  for  visible  results. 

And  in  one  respect  we  can  afford  to  The 
wait,  for  what  we  have  found  to  be  true 
in  our  own  case  must  hold  good  in  theirs 
also.  Pain,  we  have  seen,  even  though 
wrongly  borne  at  the  time,  may  yet  be 
transformed  in  retrospect,  and  defeat 
turned  into  victory  in  later  days.  If,  then, 
we  believe  that  the  growth  of  souls  con- 


176         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

tinues  after  this  life,  we  can  in  a  measure 
understand  how  that  suffering  which, 
because  it  was  not  rightly  borne,  has  been 
wholly  unprofitable  and  demoralising  in 
this  life  may  one  day  be  changed  in  quality 
and  made  the  condition  of  a  richer,  deeper, 
nobler  life  in  the  Beyond. 

The  Upon  many  souls  the  dead-weight  bur- 

th£ World's  den  °f  *he  world's  sufferings  acts  as  a 
Hi*  paralysis  to   thought   and  effort.      Con- 

siderations like  those  just  urged  may  help 
such  to  turn  from  passive  desolation  to 
active  energy.  In  the  lives  of  most  highly 
sensitive  natures  there  are  moments  when 
the  individual  feels  as  if  he  were  an  Atlas 
bearing  up  alone  the  burden  of  the  world's 
ill.  It  is  not  so.  In  the  last  resort  it  is 
borne  up  by  God,  and  there  are  always 
"seven  thousand  in  Israel,"  unsuspected 
and  unknown,  who  are  helping  us  and 
Him  to  do  it. 


MORAL  FAILURE  AND  ITS  RETRIEVAL 

In  a  chapter  which  is  primarily  a  dis- 
cussion of  pain,  it  would  be  out  of  place 
to  attempt  a  comprehensive  discussion 
either  of  the  nature  of  sin  or  of  the  mean- 
ing of  forgiveness.  So  much  pain,  how- 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         177 

ever,  is  directly  the  result  of  sin  that  it 
seems  necessary,  however  briefly,  at  least 
to  indicate  some  of  the  main  grounds  for 
regarding  the  forgiveness  of  sin  as  a  pos- 
sible and  a  reasonable  idea.  And  I  would 
ask  that  what  I  have  written  be  consid- 
ered as  a  contribution  merely  to  this 
limited  department  of  the  problem. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  human  Eva  and 
nature  than  the  varying  degree  to  which 
in  different  individuals  the  moral  con-  °*  it. 
sciousness  is  awake.  You  will  find  men 
and  women  who  are  perfectly  unconscious 
that  their  lives  are  one  long  expression  of 
"envy,  hatred,  malice  and  all  uncharitable- 
ness,"  who  yet  feel  paroxysms  of  contri- 
tion because  they  are  haunted  by  impure 
dreams.  You  will  find  others  quite  easy 
in  their  minds  about  a  long  course  of 
sexual  depravity  but  burdened  with  re- 
morse for  an  unkind  word.  We  do  not 
"see  ourselves  as  others  see  us,"  much  less 
as  God  sees  us.  Few  of  us  know  where 
our  moral  weakness  really  lies.  Sin  and 
the  consciousness  of  sin  are  quite  a  differ- 
ent matter. 

There  is  a  second  no  less  remarkable  The 
fact — one,  indeed,  which  largely  explains 
the  former.     The  guilt  of  an  action  is  of  Regret. 


178         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

directly  proportionate  to  the  extent  to 
which  the  doer  knows  that  it  is  wrong. 
Its  injurious  effect,  however,  upon  his 
moral  character  is  inversely  proportionate 
to  the  extent  that  he  regrets  it.  This 
point  is  so  important  that  it  requires 
expansion.  Every  act  is  the  expression 
of  a  previous  tendency  or  disposition  in 
the  character;  the  doing  of  the  act  stimu- 
lates that  tendency;  repeated  acts  of  the 
same  kind  rapidly  create  a  habit,  which 
becomes  a  chain  by  which  we  are  tied  and 
bound.  Not  only  that;  conscience  defied 
becomes  less  sensitive.  An  act  which  on 
the  first  occasion  was  done  with  shrinking, 
after  constant  repetition  is  performed 
with  equanimity.  The  "natural"  conse- 
quence of  the  commission  of  wrong  is  not 
the  awakening  but  the  dulling  of  the  sense 
of  sin.  But,  if  this  be  so,  a  conclusion  of 
immense  importance  follows.  To  feel 
constant  and  growing  pain  at  the  contem- 
plation of  one's  own  past  guilt  is  already 
to  have  begun  to  reverse  its  natural  conse- 
quences within  the  self.  The  conscious- 
ness of  moral  failure — I  mean,  of  course, 
only  when  it  rises  to  the  height  of  acute 
discomfort — is  a  sign  that  the  old  self  of 
whose  character  the  act  deplored  was  a 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         179 

natural  expression  is  already  dead  or 
dying,  and  a  new  self  coming  to  the  birth. 
Repentance  is  itself  an  evidence  of  moral 
advance  already  actually  achieved.  Its 
smart  is  the  smart  of  "growing  pains/' 

But  in  order  to  bring  the  new  self  to  God 
the  birth  the  individual  must  firstly  gain  a 
clear  perception  of  the  nature  and  mean- 
ing of  that  pain,  and  secondly,  must  bring 
it  into  relation  with  the  thought  of  his  own 
value,  actual  and  potential — his  actual 
value  being  in  the  last  resort  what  God, 
in  spite  of  all  his  failure,  thinks  of  him; 
his  potential  value  being  what  God,  in 
spite  of  all  his  weakness,  can  yet  make  of 
him.  At  bottom  this  is  what  the  tradi- 
tional Christian  doctrine  of  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins  was  really  driving  at,  though 
obscured  by  language  derived  from  the 
Jewish  sacrificial  system  and  by  an  obso- 
lete psychology.  Christianity  has  proved 
to  be  a  "Gospel"  just  in  proportion  as  it 
has  stressed  the  idea  (shown  in  the  previ- 
ous chapter  to  be  Christ's  most  character- 
istic contribution  to  our  conception  of 
God)  that  the  creative  power  of  the  all- 
pervading  Divine  stands  there  ever  "de- 
clining to  be  estranged,"  that  is,  still  con- 
tinuing to  regard  the  offender  as  a  being 


180         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAItf 

of  priceless  value  for  whom,  in  spite  of 
all,  He  feels  affection  undiminished  and 
hope  unlimited. 

The  Sinner  The  dawning  consciousness  of  moral 
811  °  *  failure  and  of  its  true  nature  is  itself,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  beginning  of  a  new 
birth,  and  contains  and  implies  the  possi- 
bility of  further  growth.  But  whether 
that  possibility  will  be  realised  or  not  de- 
pends largely  on  the  extent  to  which  the 
individual  recognises  this  attitude  of  the 
Divine,  and  thereby  gives  God,  so  to 
speak,  the  opportunity  of  fanning  into 
flame  the  spark  of  higher  aspiration.  This 
is  the  profound  truth  underlying  the  old 
evangelical  exhortation  to  "lay  hold  of 
the  salvation  freely  offered,"  or  to  "rest 
in  the  finished  work" — phrases  which  un- 
fortunately disguise  from  our  generation 
the  truth  which  to  our  fathers  they  made 
luminous.  Let  the  repentant  soul  realise 
that,  in  spite  of  all,  he  still  has  an  infinite 
value  for  God,  that  there  is  still  a  work 
he  can  do  for  man,  and  that  because  of 
and  by  reason  of  his  repentance  he  has 
already  begun  to  establish  a  personal  con- 
tact with  a  Higher  Power — then  at  once 
the  consciousness,  and  therefore  the  in- 
tensity and  effectiveness,  of  that  contact 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         181 

is  indefinitely  enhanced.  A  stimulation 
of  vitality  and  moral  invigoration  begins 
which  cannot  but  lift  him  right  out  of  that 
past  which  already,  by  the  mere  fact  that 
he  condemns  it  and  deplores,  he  has 
partially  outgrown. 

The  forgiveness  of  sins  does  not  mean  The  Conse- 
that  either  a  past  act  itself  or  its  inevitable  $%£** 
consequences  to  other  people  can  be  un-  giveness. 
done.  A  repentant  murderer  cannot  call 
his  victim  to  life  again;  he  may  be  fortu- 
nate enough  to  have  an  opportunity  to 
make  some  amends,  as,  for  instance,  by 
providing  for  the  orphaned  children;  but 
that  does  not  undo  the  past.  Yet,  follow- 
ing upon  genuine  repentance,  a  moral 
re-creation  is  possible  which  can  reverse 
the  otherwise  inevitable  consequences 
upon  a  man's  own  life  and  character,  and 
so  make  his  sum  total  contribution  to 
mankind  beneficent — even  if  he  cannot 
overtake  and  make  substantial  amends  to 
the  actual  victims  he  has  wronged  or 
rescind  the  consequences  of  his  folly  on 
his  fortunes  or  his  health.  More  than 
that,  a  character  so  re-created  can  effect 
certain  things  which  seem  to  be  outside 
the  range  of  those  who  have  never  fallen 
and  risen  again.  St  Paul's  conversion 


182         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

will  serve  to  illustrate  both  these  points. 
It  could  not  bring  Stephen  to  life  again, 
but  it  turned  the  harsh  fanatic  energy 
which  had  found  expression  in  that  act  of 
persecution  into  the  passion  which  made 
him  "labour  more  abundantly  than  they 
all."  In  addition  it  gave  him  an  insight 
into  the  human  heart,  into  the  nature  of 
the  moral  struggle  and  into  the  meaning 
of  Christ's  life  and  teaching,  which  made 
him,  next  to  his  Master,  that  one  who  has 
made  the  deepest  mark  on  the  heart  and 
mind  of  Europe.  And,  on  a  lesser  scale, 
we  all  know  men  whose  power  for  good 
seems  to  be  directly  conditioned  by  the 
fact  that  they  have  known  evil  and  over- 
come it.  Plato  says  that  a  physician 
should  not  be  one  who  has  always  enjoyed 
the  best  health;  and  one  who  has  himself 
failed  may  sometimes  be  the  better  physi- 
cian to  the  souls  of  others. 

Ofelix  Then,  is  it  better  to  have  sinned  and 

cu/paP  been  forgiven  than  never  to  have  sinned 
at  all?  In  St  Paul's  time,  too,  there  were 
some  who  drew  the  same  conclusion: 
"Shall  we  continue  in  sin  that  grace  may 
abound?"  We  may  leave  the  answer 
where  St  Paul  left  it.  Logically  it  may 
be  "Yes";  practically  that  answer  could 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         183 

be  given  only  by  one  who  has  never 
felt  the  experience  from  the  inside.  Such 
know  that  in  all  moral  failure  there  is  real 
loss.  Some  good  thing  which  they  might 
have  done  will,  by  reason  of  their  failure, 
remain  eternally  undone.  And  yet  they 
know  that  but  for  the  power  and  insight 
which  they  derived  from  the  fact  that  they 
had  failed  and  been  restored,  some  other 
good  thing  would  have  remained  un- 
done. It  would  seem  that  the  task  of 
bringing  about  the  Kingdom  of  God  re- 
quires the  co-operation  of  very  different 
types.  There  is  one  work  for  Mary  Mag- 
dalene, another  for  Mary  the  mother  of 
Christ.  We  cannot  question  which  of  the 
two  will  stand  higher  in  that  Kingdom; 
but  the  other  may  still  stand  high. 

In  current  religious  teaching  there  is  an  A  Current 
idea  directly  contrary,  as  it  seems  to  me,  ^J||ous 
to  the  teaching  of  Christ  about  God,  and 
no  less  contrary  to  the  lessons  of  modern 
psychology.     I  mean  the  idea  that  we 
should  continually  contemplate  and  brood 
upon  our  sins  and  work  ourselves  up  into 
agonies  of  contrition  about  them. 

If  God  is  just  He  will  estimate  a  man's  Healthy 
responsibility  for  his  offences,  not  by  the  Contrition' 
standard  of  an  ideal  man,  but  by  the 


184        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

standard     which     he     individually     had 
reached  at  the  time  when  he  committed 
them.1    If  he  has  come  to  realise  that  the 
offence  is  much  worse  than  he  supposed, 
that  is  a  sign  of  growth  in  him;  it  is  there- 
fore a  reason  for  thankfulness.    The  con- 
trition which  is  the  natural  consequence 
of  fairly  facing  up  to  his  responsibility, 
the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  he  not 
only  "ought  to  have  known  better"  but 
that  he  did  know  better,  is  healthy. 
Unhealthy        It  is  quite  otherwise  if  he  tries  to  exag- 
Contntion.    gera^e  j^  responsibility,  and  therefore  his 
contrition,  beyond  what  the  facts  war- 
rant.    The  tendency  to  do  this  is  partly 
the    result    of    conceiving    God    as    an 
offended  potentate  who'  is  likely  to  be 
propitiated  by  an  apology  in  proportion 
as  the  nature  of  the  offence  is  exaggerated 
— the  precise  conception  of  God  which 
Christ   did   His   best   to   unteach — it   is 
partly   the   reflection   of   wounded   self- 
respect.     The  humiliation  which  a  man 
feels  at  discovering  that  he  was  and  is  a 

1  Particularly  in  regard  to  the  burden  of  remembered 
offences,  committed  in  early  youth,  often  the  best  advice 
one  can  give  is  to  minimise  their  seriousness — to  make  the 
person  see  the  offence  as  something  which,  though  in  a 
grown  man  an  enormity,  in  a  boy  deserved  "a  flogging  and 
have  done  with  it." 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         185 

greater  "rotter"  than  he  had  dreamed,  is 
the  measure  of  the  Pharisee  in  him.  In  so 
far  as  this  is  the  case,  the  endeavour 
artificially  to  stimulate  contrition  is  really 
to  stimulate  spiritual  pride.  Once  a  man 
knows  he  is  a  "worm"  and  cheerfully 
accepts  the  fact,  he  can  begin  to  rise  above 
the  worm.  So  long  as  he  grovels  and 
broods  on  his  "wormanity"  he  retards  the 
process — for  the  secret  of  moral  advance 
is  to  transform  interest  in  oneself  into 
interest  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Christ 
taught  that  God  freely  forgives  but  that 
it  is  the  publican  who  most  easily  avails 
himself  of  the  fact.  To  the  worm  that 
knows  it  is  only  a  worm,  God  gives  wings. 

But  whatever  view  we  take  on  the  reli-  A  Warning 
gious  issue,  from  the  psychological  point 
of  view  this  emphasis  on  the  duty  of 
brooding  over  the  enormity  of  the  past 
is  bound  to  be  disastrous.  Indeed,  it  is 
largely  responsible  for  the  most  depress- 
ing of  all  facts  in  the  experience  of  reli- 
gious people — the  incapacity  to  overcome 
habitually  recurrent  sin.  So  many  spend 
their  time  bitterly  repenting  of,  and  after 
a  brief  interval  exactly  repeating,  the 
same  act.  Their  failure  has  a  simple 
psychological  explanation.  To  concen- 


186         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

trate  attention  on  the  enormity  of  an 
offence,  and  upon  the  blackness  of  heart 
and  the  weakness  of  will  which  can  con- 
stantly repeat  it,  is  really  to  submit  one- 
self to  a  form  of  auto-suggestion  which 
can  only  make  the  repetition  of  the  act 
inevitable.  The  advice  given  by  con- 
fessors in  these  cases  is  often  the  worst 
possible.  So  far  from  being  told  to 
deplore  the  past  and  dread  its  repetition 
in  the  future,  the  penitent  should  be  ad- 
vised to  turn  away  his  attention  from  the 
thought  of  his  own  weakness  and  sin,  to 
concentrate  on  the  power  and  the  desire 
of  God  to  help  him,  to  think  no  more  of 
past  failure  but  of  the  possibility  of  doing 
useful  constructive  work  in  the  world.  It 
may  take  some  time  to  undo  the  work  of 
long-continued  auto-suggestion,  and  to 
free  the  mind  completely  from  the  influ- 
ence of  bad  advice  and  wrong  conceptions 
— meanwhile  let  him  cease  to  bother  about 
this  particular  weakness.1  Psychology 

xBad  habits,  physical  and  mental,  whether  the  result 
of  youthful  misconduct,  accident,  or  the  lack  of  good 
advice,  often  get  beyond  the  control  of  the  conscious  will. 
If  and  when  this  stage  is  reached,  or  all  but  reached, 
they  should  be  regarded  not  as  sin,  but  as  disease.  In 
which  case  the  patient  is  only  morally  to  blame  if  he 
declines  forthwith  to  take  the  necessary  steps,  and  if  need 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         187 

confirms  the  teaching  of  St  Paul — leave 
behind  the  Law,  with  its  associations  of 
failure  and  of  fear,  throw  yourself  on  the 
power  and  love  of  God  as  seen  in  Christ, 
and  sin  shall  have  no  more  dominion  over 
you. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  RECENT  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  shell-shock  hospitals  have  provided 
an  unprecedented  opportunity  for  the 
study  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  mental 
disease.  Theories  and  methods  evolved 
by  the  great  specialists  before  the  war 
have  been  tested  and  developed,  and  new 
ones  have  been  invented.  The  result  is  a 
great  advance  in  the  understanding  of  the 
psychology  of  the  human  soul. 

As  yet  there  has  not  been  time  for  the  some  Pro- 
materials  collected  to  be  completely  di- 
gested,  and  there  is  still  a  plentiful  dis- 
agreement among  practitioners  of  differ- 
ent schools  even  in  regard  to  points  of 

be  to  seek  the  best  medical  advice,  to  cure  the  disease. 
The  mere  suggestion  that  a  bad  habit  or  an  obsession 
should  be  transferred  from  the  category  of  sin  to  that 
of  disease,  to  be  treated  quasi-medically,  as  one  would  a 
nasty  ulcer,  sometimes  at  once,  more  often  after  con- 
centrated reflection  on  the  idea,  effects  a  cure.  If  not,  a 
doctor  or  a  nerve  specialist  should  be  consulted. 


188         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

fundamental  importance.  There  are,  how- 
ever, certain  conclusions  as  to  which  there 
is  sufficient  agreement  among  those  com- 
petent to  pronounce  an  opinion  to  justify 
an  outsider  in  accepting  them  as  at  least 
provisionally  established — and  among 
these  are  some  which,  once  recognised  as 
established,  cannot  be  ignored  in  any 
treatment  of  the  subject  of  this  chapter. 
"The  One  point  in  particular  is  peculiarly 

Complex."  relevant.  Man  has  a  natural  instinct  to 
try  to  hide  away  from  himself  and  from 
others,  experiences  which  have  deeply 
wounded — in  particular  acute  humilia- 
tion, undetected  moral  lapses,  occasions 
of  acute  terror  or  long-drawn-out  appre- 
hension. Supposing  we  succeed  in  half 
smothering  or  even  completely  obliterat- 
ing the  memory  of  these,  so  much  the 
worse  for  us.  To  suppress  all  recollection 
or  expression  of  such  incidents  is  like 
applying  a  plaster  to  a  boil.  The  emotion 
associated  with  the  original  occasion  re- 
mains as  a  suppressed  poison  in  the  mind. 
It  is  always  seeking  to  find  expression  by 
investing  the  circumstances  of  a  man's 
subsequent  life  with  an  atmosphere  of 
unnecessary  apprehension,  difficulty,  or 
pain,  thus  burdening  the  personality  in 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         189 

the  present  with  the  shame,  the  fear  and 
the  agony  of  the  past.  The  result  is  de- 
pression, neurasthenia  and,  in  some  cases, 
physical  paralysis,  moral  breakdown,  or 
loss  of  reason. 

If,  however,  the  patient  can  be  induced  "Reasso- 
to  remember  clearly  and  to  speak  about 
the  buried  memory — the  "repressed  com- 
plex" as  it  is  technically  called — relief  at 
once  begins.  It  is  as  if  the  boil  were 
opened  and  the  poisonous  matter  let  out. 
It  becomes  possible  for  the  patient,  either 
for  himself  or  with  the  help  of  the  psycho- 
therapeutist,  to  begin  a  process  of  re- 
adjustment or  "reassociation,"  i.e.  of  asso- 
ciating the  event  in  his  mind  with  an 
emotion  of  an  opposite  kind.  He  can,  for 
instance,  see  for  himself,  or  be  taught  by 
another  to  see,  what  was  once  a  legitimate 
cause  of  acute  terror  or  anxiety,  either  as 
a  trifle  which  he  can  now  look  back  on 
with  a  smile,  or  as  a  real  disaster,  but  yet 
one  which  he  can  contemplate  with  a  feel- 
ing of  thankfulness  in  that  he  has  some- 
how won  through;  or,  again,  for  the  de- 
pression of  a  vaguely  realised  disgrace  he 
can  substitute  the  satisfaction  of  failure 
retrieved  or  of  guilt  atoned  for.  Once 
this  is  done,  especially  if  the  patient  can 


190         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

be  made  to  see  a  clear  relation  between 
the  emotion  associated  with  the  past  shock 
or  act  and  that  which  he  experiences  in 
connection  with  some  present  anxiety, 
mental  health  begins  rapidly  to  accrue.1 
Painful  This  lesson  of  psychology  has  a  very  im- 

portant bearing  on  everyday  life.  Among 
men  who  have  served  in  the  fighting  line, 
I  notice,  on  the  one  hand,  an  instinctive 
indisposition  to  talk  about  the  war.  On 
the  other,  when  speaking  among  intimates, 
and  especially  among  men  who  themselves 
have  seen  service,  there  is  a  constant  tend- 
ency to  recur  to  it.  But  in  each  man's 
experience  there  are  some  things  of  which 
he  never  speaks  even  to  his  most  intimate 
friends — things  which,  when  they  start 
up  in  memory,  he  strives,  sometimes  suc- 
cessfully, more  often  not,  to  exorcise  from 
consciousness.  And  what  is  true  of  men 
who  have  fought  in  the  trenches  is  true, 

1  In  acute  cases  of  nervous  breakdown  it  is  sometimes 
found  that  hypnotic  suggestion  is  required  to  complete  the 
necessary  "reassociation."  But  in  many  cases  even  of 
acute  neurasthenia,  the  mere  fact  that  the  "repressed 
complex"  has  been  brought  into  consciousness,  and  that 
the  patient  can  speak  about  it  clearly  and  fully,  enables 
him  to  put  behind  him  both  the  memory  and  the  emotions 
associated  with  it,  and,  as  it  were,  permanently  to  detach 
himself  from  this  incident  in  his  past;  which,  until  he 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         191 

though  to  a  lesser  extent,  of  most  men  and 
women.  Which  of  us  has  not  memories 
from  the  past  which  stab  and  burn, 
memories  of  things  seen,  things  suffered, 
things  done,  things  left  undone ;  memories 
of  loss,  disappointment,  humiliation,  which 
we  try,  but  try  in  vain,  to  bury? 

The  habitual  reserve  that  is  character-  Reserve, 
istic  of  the  English  and  the  Scotch,  in  so 
far  as  it  means  that  one  does  not  carry 
one's  "heart  upon  one's  sleeve  for  daws 
to  peck  at"  or  is  unwilling  to  be  for  ever 
wearying  one's  friends  with  the  recital 
of  minor  troubles  or  petty  peccadilloes,  is 
to  be  commended;  in  so  far  as  it  is  the 
expression  of  a  high  courage  which  dis- 
dains to  exaggerate  or  seem  to  shirk  its 
full  share  of  the  burden  and  the  suffering 
of  the  race,  it  is  to  be  admired.  But 
psychology  bears  out  the  ancient  proverb, 
"A  sorrow  shared  is  a  sorrow  halved." 
And  though  to  be  always  seeking  confi- 
dants for  one's  troubles  or  one's  sins 
inevitably  leads  either  to  morbid  intro- 
spection or  to  shallowness  of  character, 
an  occasional  unburdening  of  the  soul  is 

clearly  remembered  and  frankly  spoke  about  it  to  some 
one  else,  had  in  a  kind  of  way  lived  on  and  formed  part 
of  his  present  mental  outlook. 


192         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

good  for  most  of  us.  But  it  must  be  an 
"unloading"  of  fears,  worries,  sorrows  and 
disappointments,  and  not  only  a  confes- 
sion of  sins. 

The  Accordingly  anyone  who  is  haunted  by 

ofr™outh.  the  memory  of  some  fright,  some  fault, 
some  snub  in  early  life,  which  he  has  never 
confided  to  a  single  person,  should  do  so — 
not  to  all  the  world,  but  to  some  judicious 
friend  who  will  listen  sympathetically  to 
the  recital  of  these  things.  Once  they  are 
expressed  in  words  one  can  for  ever 
detach  oneself  from  that  self  of  long  ago 
which  did,  thought  and  felt  these  painful 
things.  One  can  view  that  old  self  with 
the  eyes  of  an  outsider  and  join  one's 
confidant  in  a  smile  of  sympathy  for  the 
misfortunes,  or  of  pardon  for  sins,  of  the 
"poor  little  devil,"  upon  the  stepping- 
stone  of  whose  dead  self  the  present  man 
has  risen  to  higher  things.  But — and  this 
is  the  essential  lesson  of  psychology — until 
the  failures  of  the  dead  past  have  been 
so  expressed  its  putrefying  corpse  may, 
though  we  know  it  not,  be  still  poisoning 
the  present. 

The  It  is  harder  to  find  the  right  person  to 

5totSity.0f  whom  to  confide  painful  incidents  of  ma- 

turer  years — the  moral  failures,  the  slights 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         193 

of  which  the  most  humiliating  thing  is 
that  we  feel  them  as  humiliations  at  all, 
the  moments  of  panic,  the  unworthy  fore- 
bodings and  apprehension,  the  disappoint- 
ments in  love  or  in  ambition,  the  haunting 
fear  of  loss,  failure,  or  detection  which 
hangs  above  the  head  like  a  sword  of 
Damocles;  the  follies,  lapses,  agonies  of 
those  we  love.  It  is  not  only  more  diffi- 
cult to  find  the  right  person  to  whom  to 
speak  of  things  like  these;  when  found 
it  is  more  difficult  to  bring  oneself  to  use 
him  or  her  at  the  critical  moment.  We 
are  so  often  withheld  from  speech  by  the 
reflection  that  even  when  the  cupboard 
door  is  opened  the  skeleton  will  still  re- 
main a  skeleton.  But  this  reflection  is  the 
excuse,  partly  of  our  ignorance,  partly  of 
our  desire  to  escape  the  humiliation  of 
confession.  The  skeleton,  it  is  true,  will 
still  remain  a  skeleton,  but  once  the  fresh 
air  is  let  in  it  will — if  our  confidant  be 
one  who  can  give  wise  advice — become  a 
specimen  in  the  museum  instead  of  the 
festering  remains  of  a  dead  self. 

Many  would  do  well  to  avail  themselves  The 
"of  some  discreet  and  learned  minister  of 
God's  Word,"  and  were  clergy  and  minis- 
ters trained  to  be  "soul  doctors"  one  might 


194        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

universalise  this  advice.  Unfortunately 
they  are  rarely  so  trained,  and  what  train- 
ing they  do  receive  is  based  on  an  obsolete 
psychology.  Spiritual  advice  will  do  more 
harm  than  good  unless  it  is  based  on  a 
clear  recognition  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween sin  and  disease,  that  is,  between 
what  is  entirely,  and  what  is  not  entirely, 
under  the  control  of  the  conscious  will. 
But  to  ascertain,  in  any  given  case,  the 
exact  degree  to  which  the  individual  is 
responsible  is  a  far  more  difficult  and 
delicate  process  than  most  people  seem 
to  think.  At  least  an  elementary  knowl- 
edge of  pathological  psychology  is  re- 
quired, and  more  than  an  elementary 
knowledge  of  human  nature.  Precisely 
because  his  advice  is  likely  to  be  taken 
more  seriously,  an  unwise  priest,  like  an 
ignorant  doctor,  can  do  more  harm  than 
other  men;  and  whatever  else  may  result 
from  the  laying  on  of  hands,  it  does  not 
in  itself  convey  a  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart.  Still,  given  sympathy,  experience 
and  common  sense,  the  pastor,  next  to  the 
doctor,  has  unique  opportunities  of  quali- 
fying in  that  subject.  Again,  the  ordi- 
nary man  always  approaches  a  minister 
of  religion  with  the  subconscious  expecta- 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         195 

tion  that  he  is  a  man  easily  to  be 
*  "shocked" — especially  if  the  burdened 
soul  be  unorthodox  in  his  beliefs.  And 
since  it  is  hard  not  to  live  up  to  what  every 
one  expects  of  one,  it  may  often  cost  the 
minister  an  effort  to  free  himself  from  this 
conventional  role.  But  let  him  make  that 
effort;  the  minister  of  Christ  is  called  upon 
to  be  not  the  Judge  but  the  Physician  of 
the  soul. 

Happy,  however,  are  those  who  from  The 
childhood  have  been  habituated  to   cast 

i     •     i         i  -r  •/» 

their  burden  upon  the  Lord,  to  give  free, 
frank,  and  natural  expression  in  confident 
and  spontaneous  prayer  to  contrition,  sor- 
row, fear,  on  each  occasion,  great  or  small, 
as  it  arises,  realising  God  as  the  unseen 
Friend — ready  to  forgive  sins,  able  and 
anxious  to  bind  up  wounds,  a  tower  of 
defence  in  danger.  Such  find  their  prayer 
is  answered  by  a  courage  enhanced  and 
an  insight  sharpened,  which  enables  them 
to  look  trouble  and  failure  in  the  face,  and 
before  the  bitterness  has  time  to  sink  into 
the  soul,  to  effect  for  themselves  whatever 
"reassociation"  is  required. 

It  is  an  interesting  reflection  that  the  The 
teaching  of  Christ  and  His  apostles  has  2?ckriSf. 
in  some  respects   anticipated,  in  others 


196        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

gone  beyond,  not,  of  course,  the  actual 
discoveries  of  recent  psychology,  but  their 
practical  lesson  for  everyday  life.  Psy- 
chology teaches  that  the  first  condition  of 
healing  is  to  bring  up  into  the  daylight  of 
clear  recognition  the  exact  nature  and 
quality  of  the  wound  to  be  healed;  the 
New  Testament  bids  us  look  suffering  in 
the  face,  recognise  and  confess  our  sins. 
The  next  step,  says  the  psychologist,  is  to 
reassociate  the  remembered  episode,  to 
re-educate  the  mind  and  heart,  to  change 
our  attitude  towards  the  past;  Christ  says 
the  same:  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven"; 
"Sorrow  shall  be  turned  into  joy."  Both 
say,  "First  face  up  to  the  past ;  then  turn 
your  back  upon  it";  "Believe  that  power 
is  yours  and  according  to  your  faith  it 
will  be  done  unto  you."  So  far  they  seem 
to  say  the  same  thing.  But  there  is  this 
great  difference — Christ  has  behind  Him 
a  religion,  a  reasonably  grounded  phil- 
osophy of  life.1  Hence  the  reassociation 
made  by  Him  is  more  revolutionary  and 
more  profound;  for  He  says  of  the 

*In  practice  successful  psychotherapists  largely  ac- 
complish their  cures  by  suggesting  ideas  of  hope,  con- 
fidence, and  consolation,  which  is  in  effect  providing  the 
patient  with  at  least  the  practical  deduction  of  a  Chris- 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         197 

wounds  of  the  past,  not  only  that  they 
can  be  healed,  but  that  out  of  them  and 
by  reason  of  them  can  be  won  an  actual 
enrichment  of  the  present;  and  He  gives 
as  the  ground  of  this  confidence  the  love 
and  the  power  of  God.  Indeed,  one 
might  almost  say  that  the  essence  of 
Christianity  is  its  peculiar  "reassociation" 
of  the  idea  of  suffering.  In  the  New 
Testament,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in 
a  previous  chapter,1  suffering  is  no  longer 
a  problem  but  a  source  of  light,  no  longer 
a  thing  to  be  avoided,  but  a  privilege 
to  be  claimed ;  and  that  because  it  is  some- 
thing shared  by  God  Himself  and  the 
means  of  His  accomplishing  the  sublimest 
of  all  ends. 

THE  WAY  AND  THE  POWER 

I  have  tried  to  show  that,  whatever  our 
view  of  the  origin  and  purpose  of  the 
suffering  and  evil  in  the  world,  there  is 
a  way  out — a  way  which,  for  the  indi- 

tian  philosophy  of  life.  Owing,  however,  to  the  tragic 
feud  between  Science  and  Religion — a  feud  which,  it  may 
be  hoped,  our  generation  will  see  healed — few  eminent 
scientific  men  are  in  a  position  conscientiously  to  make 
full  use  of  this  source  of  power. 
1  Cf.  pp.  29  ff. 


198        THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

vidual,  is  at  once  the  most  perfect  adapta- 
tion to  environment  and  the  line  of  moral 
progress.  "Granted,"  some  will  say,  "but 
'straight  is  the  gate  and  narrow  is  the 
way/  When  the  bitterness,  the  agony, 
and  the  desolation  is  on  us,  or  when  it 
comes  back  to  us  in  vivid  memories  of  the 
past,  it  is  not  enough  to  be  told  there  is 
a  way  out,  we  lack  the  power  to  tread  it." 
Religion  Precisely  at  this  point  religion  is  seen 

as  Power.      to   fee   yitaj   to   every(jay   life.      For,   in 

exact  proportion  to  its  truth  and  our 
sincerity,  religion  is  power.  Conceive  of 
God  as  Christ  conceived  Him,  make  a 
genuine  effort  to  trust  Him  and  to  follow 
Christ,  and  experience  shows  that  prayer, 
communion,  meditation,  will  prove  to  be 
the  road  to  power.  "Salvation" — that 
is,  inspiration  and  deliverance  in  one — is 
within  our  grasp.  "Ask,  and  it  shall  be 
given  you;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find." 

But,  if  this  be  said,  in  the  same  breath 
a  warning  must  be  added  against  an  un- 
questioning submission  to  the  guidance, 
not  only  of  popular  manuals  of  devotion, 
but  even  of  the  great  classics.  Even  in 
the  best  of  them,  language  is  occasionally 
used  which  cannot  but  suggest  the  idea 
that  God  is  a  jealous  Potentate  needing 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         199 

and  liking  to  be  placated  by  ostentatious 
grovelling.  But  to  the  precise  extent  in 
which  any  surviving  elements  of  this  pre- 
Christian  conception  affect  our  attitude 
towards  Him,  our  prayer  is  likely  to  be 
a  source  of  weakness  not  of  power.  A 
parent  or  a  teacher  can  do  very  little  for 
a  child  who  is  simply  abject,  and  it  is  hard 
for  God  to  speak  to  us  unless  we  first 
obey  the  order,  "Son  of  man,  stand  upon 
thy  feet." 

There  is  another  avenue  to  spiritual 
power,  less  important  but,  because  less 
familiar,  needing  special  emphasis. 

Modern    psychology   has    shown    that  The  Sub- 
what  I  can  or  cannot  do  depends  not  only  Mind.iOUB 
on  the  desires  and  the  effort  of  my  con- 
scious self,  but  on  the  hopes,  fears  and 
convictions  which  have  sunk  deep  into  my 
subconscious    mind.1      If    my    conscious 
mind  believes  in  God  but  I  am  for  ever 
anxious  for  the  morrow,  it  is  because  my 
subconscious  mind  does  not  believe.    The 

1 1  use  the  term  "subconscious  mind"  for  its  obvious 
convenience  to  describe  that  part  of  the  mind  which 
happens  to  be  for  the  time  being  outside  the  field  of  full 
consciousness.  Anything,  however,  or  practically  any- 
thing, in  the  subconscious  area  of  the  mind  can  on  occa- 
sion come  into  the  field  of  consciousness,  and  anything  in 
the  conscious  mind  may  be  withdrawn  from  consciousness. 


200         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

subconscious  mind  is  always  learning  from 
the  conscious,  but  it  both  learns  and  for- 
gets more  slowly.  And  the  lessons  it  takes 
to  heart  most  deeply  are  not  the  purely 
intellectual  notions  of  the  conscious  mind, 
but  the  values  and  emotions  associated 
with  them.  A  man,  for  instance,  may 
believe  with  his  conscious  mind  that  God 
is  good  and  men  are  brothers,  but  only 
if  he  plans  and  acts  towards  the  Universe 
and  man  as  if  these  things  were  true  will 
his  subconscious  mind  believe  it  also.  If 
his  conscious  mind  affirms  the  principle  of 
love  but  he  schemes  injury  to  the  brother 
whom  he  hath  seen,  it  is  the  attitude  of 
hate  that  the  subconscious  mind  will  learn. 
Its  It  is,  therefore,  not  enough  to  assent 

on'  with  the  mind  to  a  philosophy  that  proves 
that  the  Power  behind  the  Universe  is  one 
that  works  for  righteousness;  it  is  not 
enough  to  recognise  with  the  intellect  that 
for  the  individual  sufferer  there  is  a  way 
out;  we  must  so  realise  the  meaning  and 
the  implications  of  these  beliefs  for  feel- 
ing, thought  and  conduct,  that  they  be- 
come part  of  our  inmost  being.  But  for 
this  to  happen,  the  values  and  emotions 
dominant  in  our  conscious  mind  must 
dominate  the  subconscious  also.  Con- 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         201 

scious  and  subconscious  act  and  react  on 
one  another ;  but  the  conscious,  if  it  knows 
and  wills,  can  in  the  long  run  direct  the 
whole  by  selecting  the  ideas  and  values 
upon  which  to  ponder  deepest  in  moments 
of  quiet  meditation. 

You  may  call  this  "auto-suggestion"  if  "Auto-sug- 
you  like;  auto-suggestion  is  only  a  bad  ges 
thing  if  the  idea  suggested  is  evil  or  un- 
true, and  it  is  often  of  the  utmost  value. 
But  in  any  case  a  certain  amount  of  it  is 
a  psychological  necessity.  Do  what  we 
will,  we  cannot  keep  our  minds  a  vacancy. 
The  conscious  mind  is  ever  brooding,  ever 
dwelling  on  thoughts,  hopes  and  fears 
which  inevitably  act  as  "suggestions'1  to 
the  subconscious.  We  cannot  avoid  some 
form  of  auto-suggestion;  we  can  choose 
the  form.  Let  us,  then,  select  what  our 
intellect  at  its  keenest  sees  to  be  most  true, 
what  our  insight  at  its  acutest  sees  to  be 
most  beautiful  or  best,  and  meditate  on 
this.  "Whatsoever  things  are  true,  what- 
soever things  are  honourable,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  what- 
soever things  are  of  good  report ;  if  there 
be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise, 
think  on  these  things."  Above  all,  as  we 


202         THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN 

compose  ourselves  to  rest  at  night,  let  us 
remember  to  govern  mind  and  thought. 
We  cannot  but  "suggest"  to  ourselves 
some  thoughts,  the  effect  of  which  will 
follow  us  next  day.  We  have  got  to  make 
a  choice  between  thoughts  of  confidence 
or  despair,  of  power  or  weakness,  of  love 
or  hate.  One  way  or  the  other,  we  cannot 
but  decide  whether  our  attitude  to  life  and 
to  the  Universe — and  that  means  to  God 
— is  one  of  doubt  or  trust,  and  in  regard 
to  pain,  one  of  acceptance  or  resentment. 
Then  let  the  choice  made  reflect,  not  the 
mood  of  the  moment,  but  the  conviction 
of  a  life. 

The  In  the  perplexities,  the  anxieties,  the 

L?ght.n  smarting  pains  of  life,  such  self-control, 
such  government  and  direction  of  our 
thoughts  is  hard.  We  need  some  focal 
point  round  which  to  centre  our  philoso- 
phy of  power  and  help;  we  seek  some 
beacon  light  upon  the  cliff — visible  how- 
ever dark  the  night. 
And  this  we  have. 

Direction,  inspiration,  strength  can  all 
be  had  from  one  source.  Only  let  the 
needle  of  life's  compass  be  magnetised 
and  free  to  move,  so  that  it  points  always 
towards  the  Pole,  Steer  boldly  straight 


THE  DEFEAT  OF  PAIN         203 

ahead,  "looking  unto  Jesus,  the  author 
and  finisher  of  our  faith,  who  for  the  joy 
that  was  set  before  Him  endured  the 
Cross" — courage  victorious  and  love 
triumphant.  Let  prayer  and  meditation 
centre  always  round  the  thought  of  the 
Love  and  Power  of  that  infinite  and  all- 
pervading  Spirit  of  whom  Christ  is  the 
portrait,  and  it  will  be  possible  to  rise 
above  the  natural  consequences  of  evil 
happenings,  to  make  of  suffering  an 
opportunity,  of  loss  a  stepping-stone  to 
gain,  and  to  find  in  failure  retrieved  and 
pain  conquered  the  secret  of  power. 


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